In today’s fast-paced life, the wins usually go to those with exceptional skills and abilities. The old quote is true, “The race is not always won by the swift and the strong, but that is the way to bet.”

With this in mind, and with your desire to become increasingly successful, here are some ways to accelerate your abilities, thus enabling you to achieve greater and greater things.

Become dissatisfied with your current state. Growth for growth’s sake is good. Those who will achieve much are those who say to themselves, “I want to grow. I want to be better. And I am willing to do what it takes to get there. This current state is not enough!” This dissatisfaction will create for you an insatiable drive to do what it takes to get your abilities to the next level.

Visualize the benefits of increased abilities. Put them at the forefront of your mind. This will saturate your mind with the motivation that it will take for you to do what it takes to increase your abilities. What good will come out of my increased ability? How will I be better off as well as the others around me? The answers to these questions act as the carrot before the horse, moving you forward.

Understand your weaknesses. If you want to improve, one of the best ways is to start with some area that you aren’t particularly good at. This is the “shoring up method.” Sometimes it is easier to improve something you aren’t good at that something you are. And the gains will still look great for your overall situation! Take some time to consider what areas you are weakest in and focus in on them for a while. The results will obviously be much more pronounced than getting better at something you have already somewhat mastered.

Attempt greater levels of what you are already good at. Another tact to take would be to stretch yourself in an area that you already have some skill and ability in. What areas do you excel in? Now understand that when you leave the weaker areas weak and make extraordinary gains in one area, then you will be moving more toward “specialist” rather than “generalist.” That is okay, but needs to fit in with your overall goals.

Commit time each day to improvement. Steady improvement is the way to go. In fact, you may not see improvement for days or weeks. You may feel like you are failing each time. But alas, eventually you will get it and your skill will increase to the next level. The key is day in, day out, spending time working on improving. Even five minutes a day equals a half hour a week, 2 hours a month. That adds up! Remember, Practice, practice, practice.

Seek out and spend time with someone who has greater ability than you. One of the best things to do to increase your ability is hang out with people who are already more skilled than you. Watching, them, studying them, interacting with them, even competing with them will make you better. As in sports, to improve, you play with people better than you, not worse. They will raise you to a new level. Who around you can you get involved with who will help you with your ability?

Take a class or hire a coach. Go to school my friend. Take a course at a local college or vocational institute. Take a class online. Hire one of the many coaches available today. Pick a specific skill you would like to improve upon and find someone who is a specialist in that area. At the very least, pick up some audio or videotapes to help you grow.

Be the tortoise, not the hare. Slow but sure. Take your time, do it right. Keep going in the right direction. Learn your craft correctly. Don’t give up quality for speed. The whole idea of acceleration is this way: Slow start, work up to high speeds, go the distance. Luckily life isn’t a sprint but a marathon!

Hope these ideas help you as you commit to accelerating your abilities!

You’ve written out your goals. You read them every day. You do the visualization exercises. You do everything you’ve read about in this newsletter and all the other newsletters, seminars, self-help books and web sites, but nothing seems to be happening in your life.

Why doesn’t this manifesting thing work for me, you ask?

Well, there is a bit more to it than most people lead on.

In order for the things you desire to start manifesting in your life, you MUST reprogram your thoughts and beliefs.

Yes, affirmations and visualization is the way to do it. But you can only manifest WHAT YOU BELIEVE YOU CAN MANIFEST.

If you wish to manifest money in your life, more than you’ve ever had before, you MUST BELIEVE that you already have the money that you desire.

What? Now what is the world do you mean by that, Dawn?

Yeah, it sounds a bit crazy doesn’t it? But it works, really, it does.

See, you do already have it. It just hasn’t materialized into your world yet.

God is your supply for EVERYTHING.

So, let’s say you want one million dollars, but your bank account says $45. And the most you’ve ever had after your bills are paid is about $150.

$1million sounds like an unbelievable amount of money to you. But you go on affirming it and visualizing it, reading your self-help books, doing all the things the “experts” tell you to do. But at the same time that you are doing that, a little voice inside of your head is saying, right under those affirmations, “Yeah, right. One million dollars? You buggin’.”

The reason that voice is there is because that statement, “You buggin;” is your CORE BELIEF.

In order for things to manifest in your life you have to change your core beliefs. Once you change your beliefs, you will change your life.

 It is a challenge to succeed. If it were not, I’m sure more people would be successful, but for every person who is enjoying the fruit from the tree of success, many more are examining the roots. They are trying to figure it all out. They are mystified and perplexed by what seems to be some strange, complex and elusive secret that must be found if ever success is to be enjoyed.

While most people spend most of their lives struggling to earn a living, a much smaller number seem to have everything going their way. Instead of just earning a living, the smaller group is busily engaged in designing and enjoying a fortune. Everything just seems to work out for them. While the much larger group sits in awe at how life can be so unfair, complicated and unjust.

“I am a nice person,” the man says to himself. “How come this other guy is happy and prosperous, and I’m always struggling?” He asks himself, “I am a good husband, a good father and a good worker. How come nothing seems to work out for me? Life just isn’t fair. I’m even smarter and willing to work harder than some of these other people who just seem to have everything going their way,” he says as he slumps into the sofa to watch another evening of television. But you see you’ve got to be more than a good person and a good worker.

You’ve got to become a good planner, and a good dreamer. You’ve got to see the future finished in advance. You’ve got to put in the long hours and put up with the setbacks and the disappointments. You’ve got to learn to enjoy the process of disciplines and of putting yourself through the paces of doing the uncomfortable until it becomes comfortable. You’ve got to be prepared and willing to attack the challenges if you want the success because challenges are part of success. Now that may sound like a full menu of activities, but let me assure you that the process of going from average to fortune isn’t really all that difficult.

Thinking about it is the difficult part. Anticipating all the effort and the changes and the disciplines is far worse in the mind than in reality. I can promise you that the challenges you’ll meet on the road to success are far less difficult to deal with than the struggles and the disappointments that come from being average. Confronting and overcoming challenges is an exhilarating experience. It does something to feed the soul and the mind. It makes you more than you were before. It strengthens the mental muscles and enables you to become better prepared for the next challenge.

I’ve often said that to have more, we must first become more, and to become more, we must begin the process of working harder on ourselves than we do on anything else. But in addition to gathering new knowledge, new skills and new experiences; it is also important to discover new emotions. It is how we feel about what we know that makes the biggest difference in how our lives turn out. How we feel about the chances we have and the choices we have determines the intensity of our effort. Whether we try or don’t try. Join or don’t join. Believe or don’t believe.

I’d like for you to discover some strong feelings about your life and about what you want to do with that life. You probably have much of the knowledge and a lot of the experience and perhaps most of the skills that it takes to become successful. What you may be lacking in are the strong feelings about what you want and what you want to do. You may be one of those who have become so involved in the process of earning a living that you’ve forgotten about the choices and the chances you have for designing your own life.

Let these strong feelings help you take a second look at your life and where you’re headed. After all, you’ve only got one life, at least on this planet. So why not make it an adventure in achievement? Why not discover what all you can do and what all you can have? Why not discover how many others you can help and in the process how that can help you?

When I was born in 1962 I thought life was good. I had two parents, a twin sister, and an older brother. We lived in an apartment until my sister and I were eleven, and then we moved into a house. My brother was twenty-one years old so he moved onto his own apartment. I was the luckiest girl in the world.

We were the normal family with chaos and the antics of being a family. I was blessed to have my parents around in my life.

At the age of thirty my parents were still together. Of course their marriage went through their ups and downs, but all marriages develop this kind of turmoil. I don’t know a marriage that doesn’t go through frustrations that might sometimes end up in divorce. My parents loved each other, so they dealt with the controversies and the marriage burdens of trying to compromise and get to know each other.

I had a best friend in my life, and it was my mother. I loved her so much, and we talked about three or four times a day. I enjoyed communicating with my mother because she was so honest, real, and like an angel in the midst of my life. I was so negative at times, but she kept encouraging me, and was my supportive mode.

My mother believed in my writing, and was also my biggest fan. She read my work, gave her criticism on it, and was adamant in me making all my dreams come true. When I sold my first short story, I was thrilled to be published, but before I could enjoy my success a twist entered my life, and it was the most devastating feeling in the world.

In 1995 my mother left this world. It was a total shock to me when she got sick. My mother never got sick in her life, so I was stunned, but I knew she’d get better. I never thought she would leave me. I nursed my mother back to health, and prayed for her. At times my mother was so sick; I thought she wasn’t going to survive. My mother was plump, and when she got sick she lost so much weight. I had a bad feeling that she wasn’t going to make it, but I didn’t want to think about it.

My mother couldn’t hold anything down and she puked most of the time. I didn’t know what she was thinking, or how she was feeling. I’d have given anything to know her thoughts. I was so close to her, but again I didn’t feel so close to her at all. She’d stare at me for hours on end, and the stare was so deep as if she was looking into my soul, or trying to tell me something.

My mother was very spiritual and religious, and she read the Bible all the time. The last few weeks of her life she’d speak in tongues and it would amaze me when I listened to her. I believed she was talking to God, and had her own communication with him.

I have a feeling that my mother knew she was going to leave this earth, and move onto heaven, but she never discussed it with me. I was planning on her getting better and the things she was going to do, but at times she just stared at me. I never thought she’d leave me.

I believed I was going to have my mother for the rest of my life. I was 35 years old when my mother left me. It was in June of 1995. I was with her on Wednesday taking care of her. She kept staring at me, but she never said that much to me. I never thought anything was going to happen. I went home, and at three o’clock on a Thursday in the morning, my father called me and told me that he couldn’t wake my mother up.

I didn’t think anything about it because my mother took so much medication, it’d make her sleep for hours. I told him to shake her, and not to panic. He didn’t think she was alive, so I called my sister and her boyfriend took us over to my mother’s house. My mother was lying in her chair in her house, in her bedroom. She looked like she was sleeping to me, so I shook her a few times, but she didn’t wake up. I tried waking her up, and prayed to God that she would wake up, but she just laid there with her eyes closed. I couldn’t believe my mother was gone. She just wouldn’t wake up. I was so upset as I hugged and embraced her, and asked her to please wake up. “Please don’t leave me, mother. I love you so much, and I can’t go on without you. Please don’t go.”

All the crying and the praying didn’t help my mother. She was gone. I experienced death in my family with cousins, and when my grandmother died, which was devastation within itself. It’s very different when it’s your mother and best friend. I never thought it’d happen to me. I was thirty-three years old when my mother left me. Some people said I was blessed to have been grown when she passed because some people lose their mother when they are much younger. It wasn’t any consolation to me because when you lose your mother, it doesn’t matter what age you are. It’s still the most horrible feeling in the world.

My mother had Congestive Heart Failure. She was my best friend, and I miss her like crazy. This twist came into my life, and it left a terrible ache inside of me. I didn’t think I was going to survive, and I almost had a heart attack. I asked God to get me through this miserable time in my life because he had to take her, and it was her time. There was nothing I could do about it.

I kept seeing my mother at every turn, and it got to the point that I couldn’t go near 87th Street where my mother lived. I’d sit in my apartment and think about my mother constantly; I’d pick up the telephone to call her; and hear her laughter all the time. She was the best mother in the world, and I’d never forget her. Everyone who met my mother adored her. She was like this angel who was only here for sixty-five years, and she brought so much joy to the people she touched. I miss her every day, and my father thinks about her at every turn, also. He’s also in his own turmoil of pain missing his wife so much.

It has been ten years since my mother departed this earth, and I have dreams about her, and they are so real to me. She’s right there in her house, and everything is the same so many years ago. I’d give anything to go back to the years my mother was alive. I’d do so many things differently.

I never got to say good-bye, and that’s what I can’t overcome. The first weeks of my mother’s death she appeared to me in a dream and told me that everything was okay, and she was fine. She looked so beautiful like she used to look before she got sick. My mother came to me a few more times, and it gave me so much comfort that I was able to go on with my life.

I was so angry at first that God took my mother, and I couldn’t understand why he did this to me? Reading the Bible and talking to God helps you to understand the realities of the world, and the twist and turns they take. We all have to experience the trials and tribulations of life because that’s just the way it is.

I’m still not over my mother’s death, but I know she’s in a good place, and she’s watching me make my writing dreams come true. She’s my angel who keeps me safe, and gives me the strength to move on. She’s my guardian angel, and I’ll always love my mother.

Her spirit lives on in me, and when the world ends, I know I’ll be reunited with her, and all the other members of my family that have passed on. So even when twists and turns enters your life, there is a white light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s the most beautiful light in the world, and then some. I can’t see my mother in her body form, but I can always remember her, and smile. My mother is very much alive in me, and she’ll always be my blessing.

The twists and turns interrupted my life for the moment, but its okay because I still have my mother, and no one can take that away from me. I continue to experience the twists and turns of my life: divorce, losing jobs, financial ruination, dating, working at stressful jobs, writing and rejection, and just everyday living, I constantly pray for serenity and a peace of mind. It’s 2005 now and I’m still standing. (1,549)

I truly think gift giving is an art form. I also think that I have gotten it
down to a science. Most of the time when I have the opportunity to give a gift,
I already know the person well enough to know exactly what to give them.
However, what do you do when you have no clue what to give that person, like when you are going to the wedding of two people who are upwardly mobile and seem to already have everything? Here are some suggestions for you.

Find out if that person is a part of a fraternity or a sorority. If they are,
then find out about the fraternity or sorority. Most of them will have special
colors or animals that are associated with them. You can’t go wrong if you get
them something that is associated with their fraternity or sorority.

Think about what they do for a living and get them something that they can use on a day-to-day basis. For example when my friend graduated from law school, I got him a mug that pictured some men wearing his fraternity’s colors. The mug also came with some highlighters. Judging from the reaction that I got from him, that was the perfect thing to get him.Another example of a good gift is something that I saw at a bridal shower that I recently attended. The gift was some stamps and some thank you cards. Pretty clever.

Giving great gifts doesn’t have to be that hard or that expensive. You just have to use that brain of yours to come up with something that the other person will enjoy and not wind up standing in a long “customer no service” line trying to return or exchange. One final suggestion. Don’t even bother with clothes unless you know the person’s exact size and taste.

Manic depression or Bipolar depression is actually considered as one of the worst type of depression that people usually suffer from.

Characterized by sudden and extreme changes in their mood, Manic depression is said to be called as such because manic = mania refers to the ‘ups’ while depression refers to the ‘downs’.
A lot of people actually experience erratic changes in their moods, some times, these so-called mood swings may not just be caused by PMS (pre-menstrual syndrome) or stress. Doctors actually have diagnosed mood swings as a common symptom of depression.

But when these so-called mood swings have gone to utmost absurdity, from getting irked even by the littlest or simplest of thins like not getting your favorite ice cream flavor, this may not be just a sign of brattiness, but when getting irked means you’ll cuss and swear on the ice cream vendor and throw absurd tantrums, this may already be the start of Manic depression.The so-called ‘manic’ or ‘ups’ in Manic depression is described as to be the times when a person suffering from Manic depression may experience overly high periods, consisting of heightened energy, a sudden outburst of euphoric mood, extreme irritability, thoughts racing as well as aggressive behavior.
According to therapists, someone suffering from Manic depression may have these so-called manic ‘periods’ wherein sudden outbursts of euphoric and elevated mood swings may actually go through this for as long as not just a day, in can actually go on for as long as one week, even longer than that.

When it comes to the so-called ‘low’ or ‘down’ periods, as its name suggests can actually bring someone who is suffering from Manic depression may experience very similar symptoms to those who are suffering from actual depression. People who are suffering from Manic depression may actually experience episodes showing a depressed state of mind – a feeling of worthlessness and being unloved may start to corrupt the individual’s mind. Various symptoms, showing guilt, extreme sadness, anxiety attacks, feeling of not belonging, extreme pessimism and obvious loss for pleasure. According to therapists, an individual who is depressed. consistently for more than a week can officially be diagnosed as someone who is suffering from Manic depression.

In spite of being one of the most common, yet severe type of depressive disorder, Manic depression, according to doctors can actually be treated. There’s no reason to worry too much about it, just follow the proper procedures that the therapist will instruct you to do, take the proper prescribed medications as well as the proper dosage in order to help you (or your friend or love one) overcome Manic depression before it becomes too late. Also, individuals who are suffering from Manic depression should always be able to see their therapists on a regular basis so as to be able to release their pent up emotions to some one who can interpret and understand what they’re going to a lot better as compared to “normal” people.

Although positive results for a Manic depressive patient can still be achieved from natural alternatives, a proper and a more lasting relief from Manic depressive symptoms can still be best acquired through seeing cognitive behavior therapists. Contrary to some beliefs, when it comes to psychiatric treatments, psychiatrists, preferably cognitive behavior therapists are still the best ones to consult for Manic depression, as well as the ones who’ll most probably be able to cure Manic depression.

As a Psychiatrist I spent most of my life training and researching effective therapies that would help my clients make changes in their personalities. The premise was that by making such a change the client would feel capable of doing or feeling things that they could not access before. Such change is regularly sought by individuals who find themselves the prisoners of personality characteristics that they have either inherited or become conditioned with throughout their lives. These personality characteristics often leave these individuals unhappy, unfulfilled, incapable, trapped, sad, depressed, alone, ostracized, self-conscious, depressed, and suicidal just to name a few.

After 20 years of clinical practice and after having trained in numerous modalities (i.e. psychoanalytic psychotherapy, interpersonal therapy, hypnotherapy and hypnoanalysis, psychoenergetics, imagery therapy, and EMDR) I found my views about personality evolving in a rather non-traditional direction. This came about following several new observations that I made in my clinical work that changed both the nature of my work and my life completely.

These observations were:

1. Our so-called personality is based on the sum total of beliefs that we have about others our environment and ourselves.

2. These beliefs are held in the mind/body (i.e. also referred to some as consciousness/unconsciousness) system as “packets” of information which I term “Thought Miasms”

3. These Thought Miasms act much like subroutines (i.e. a subroutine is a sub-component, or sub-program embedded in a computer program or algorithm) in a computer program. That is they have a certain purpose, they affect and are affected by other Thought Miasms. An example would be “I am not worthy” because “I am a bad person” and conversely, “I am a bad person” and therefore “I am not worthy”.

4. These Thought Miasms form an intricate web of sub-programs that affect our perceptions, thoughts, feelings and behaviors at every moment of our lives.

5. These Thought Miasms become embedded in us through conditioning which arise from all experiences we have in our lives and which become stored in the mind/body as memory fragments or complete memories.

6. These memory fragments, which are complex constellations of Thought Miasms exist as information stored in what many call Thought Energy Fields. These are fields of energy that contain all of one’s waking and non-waking thoughts experienced and accumulated throughout time and space i.e. one’s life experience.

7. An individual is keenly aware of when a Thought Miasm exists by how it makes them feel. That is it often has the tendency to negatively affect how they feel emotionally, physically or spiritually.

8. The very fact that one is able to make an internal assessment of the desirability of a particular Miasm suggested that perhaps they were not naturally meant to be in one’s Thought Field in the first place.

After considerable research I developed a tool I call the Mind Resonance Processâ„¢ that allowed me to help individuals release undesirable Thought Miasms from their Thought Fields (Arrizza, N., Releasing Multiple Traumatic Memories Simultaneously in a Single Session Using the Mind Resonance Processâ„¢, 2005, Arrizza Performance Coaching Inc.) By so doing I was effectively helping these individuals “dismantle” their personalities. A process, which is conceptually and practically very different from helping one “change” their personality.

So what does it mean to say that one is “dismantling” a personality? A difficult question to answer based on the fact that human beings have not experienced this phenomenon so far. In order to get at an answer to this I will first relate the experience of clients of having undergone such a transformation.

Generally one experiences the following: they feel lighter and more buoyant, they feel a great sense of inner peace, palpable feelings of divine love, joy and fulfillment, a greater feeling of connectedness to others and to their environment, a greater sense of resilience to emotional stresses, more confident, heightened self-esteem and self-confidence, a feeling of expansiveness (i.e. they feel that they exist beyond the confines of their physical body), an overall enhancement in emotional, physical and spiritual well being and in some cases there have been observed spontaneous healing of various medical conditions.

What is most interesting though is that most clients report the following:

1. They feel more like their “real selves” than they have ever felt before in their lives.

2. This feeling of their “real self” is both familiar and ancient, despite having been such a small part of their lives to date.

3. The Thought Miasms not only feel like they no longer reside “inside” the person, they also feel like they “never resided” in them, i.e. as if they never existed at all.

After having repeated many times over the last several years these findings I am coming to the conclusion that not only are we not our personalities but we never were. In fact what I believe these individuals, and myself included, are experiencing is that of the Divine Self.

This is an experience that many individuals have sought through other means, most of which aim to separate the “spirit” from the body (i.e. out of body experiences, near death experiences, astral travel and so on).

It is my view that these processes are trying to achieve a divine experience by trying to get around the limitations of the personality. This I feel is unnecessary now that we can eliminate the “Personality Miasm” from our mind/body permanently.

We are in a position to experience our Divine Selves while “in” our physical bodies. I wonder if this is the way it was meant to be?

When you think about the most successful, happy, fulfilled people you know, you could probably identify some characteristics these people have in common. If we were sitting together, I’m sure we could build a nice list of these characteristics, attributes, habits and attitudes.

Several years ago, when thinking about that question, I identified several things that those people shared that I wanted to incorporate into my habits more consistently. These things have made and continue to make a difference for my own personal and professional development.

These five things are truly universal – these five habits could make all of us more productive. After applying them more diligently in my life, I had them printed on the back of my business cards. That version of cards has since been replaced, but when one of those cards came across my desk, I was pleased with the ideas as I read them again, and decided I would describe them in this article.

Following then are the five actions I identified. When these actions are taken more often, they will become habits that will greatly impact our performance – in all parts of our life.

Read More. The statistics are horrible and sad. As a whole, Americans don’t read very much. Given that reading is one of the best ways for us to learn new ideas, techniques, skills and approaches, it only makes sense that reading is a key to our education, learning and growth. If you want to advance in any part of your life, make reading a part of your daily routine. Reading an average of 30 minutes a day will allow you to read one book per month in an area of interest or professional growth. That’s 12 books a year. How much of a difference could that make in your performance?

Listen More. Listening gives us the chance to learn something. When you listen more intently you build the other person’s confidence and show, through your actions, that you value both them and their information. Really good active listening is a skill we all have –when the person or the topic is highly important to us we can listen very effectively. The challenge for us is to listen more intently, more of the time.

Ask “Why?” More. Exercise your curiosity! Asking why helps us determine the causes of problems (making it easier for us to solve them.) Asking why helps us learn about anything, when we ask it. Asking why can help us see things from a fresh perspective. As kids we ask this question incessantly. As adults we too often forget to ask it. Ask it already!

Smile More. If I could tell you that there is something you could do that takes almost no energy, costs you nothing and is guaranteed to improve your emotional health, and at the same time helps other people feel better too, you’d be interested in that wouldn’t you? Just smile. You will feel better when you do. And a smile is contagious – in a good way. It spreads good feelings and positive emotions. It reduces conflict and stress. Smiling more is perhaps the easiest of these habits to implement. And you can start right now.

Say “Thank You” More. It is one of the first interpersonal skills we teach children. We do it because we know that it is important. Saying thank you is the right thing to do. Say in person, say it in a handwritten note. Say it on the phone, say it in email. When you focus on a spirit of gratitude, it becomes easier. Like smiling, this one is easy to start right away.

These habits aid us in two major ways – they help us become more consistent and successful learners and they help us build better relationships by improving our interpersonal skills. Reading, listening, and exercising our curiosity certainly help us learn more about whatever we choose to learn about. And listening to others (really listening) is one of the best ways to improve relationships. Of course, smiling and saying thank you also make us more pleasant to be around, and encourage others to want to build relationships with us too!

So you want to be a leader? Or you want to be a better leader? It can be done, you know. No matter where you are in your leadership journey, you CAN move forward. You CAN lead better. You CAN lead more people. You CAN lead your organization to higher ground.

Yes, you CAN!

But let me tell you this: You won’t do it via osmosis! It won’t just “happen.” Growing in your leadership is not something that comes from the fairy godmother of leadership. You can’t touch the hem of Jack Welch’s garment and become “Super-Leader!” Oh, that it were that easy!

So what does it take?

Time.

Experience.

Training.

Hard Knocks.

A Mentor.

Discipline.

And a few others.

But let’s start at the very beginning. You want to be a leader. That’s good. You want to be a better leader. That’s good too. But what comes first? Preparation. Leadership Prep. What is it? What needs to happen in order to get yourself ready to become a leader? As you get ready for 2002 and you want to take the next step in your leadership, take these last days of November and go through a little reflection on Leadership Prep.

Before you become the leader you want to be:

Count the cost. Leadership is hard. There will be times that you say, “Leadership isn’t worth it. These people are crazy and I don’t deserve this.” It is true. You don’t deserve it. But you choose it. You choose it because you want to lead people. You want to improve their lives. You see the higher ground that they cannot see and you desire to take them there. It will take time. It will take money. It will sap your strength and energy. Count the cost, my friend. Leadership is not for the weak and timid. Yes, the rewards are great, but so are the sacrifices. Prep yourself for the cost of leadership.

Assess your strengths and weaknesses. Too many people dive into trying to lead and end up dying out because they were not honest with themselves about their strengths and weaknesses. They get going and realize that they should have strengthened themselves in certain areas because now it is killing their ability to lead. If you know your strengths, then you can focus yourself on them and allow yourself to be successful through them. If you are aware of your weaknesses you will be able to stay away from them, or hire to cover them, and thus allow yourself to become even more successful as a leader. So prep yourself by becoming exceedingly clear on your strengths and weaknesses.

Settle in for the marathon, not the sprint. Very few – I mean VERY few – people get big leadership assignments at early ages. And when they do, even fewer of the few see things happen fast in their leadership. No, usually things happen slowly. Why do we think they will happen fast then? Because those are the only stories we hear on TV and read about in magazines. “Twenty-five year old starts business that grows to $20 million a year in sales in JUST TWO YEARS,” Sells a lot better than “Forty-five year old works hard for twenty years and builds lasting business that makes a difference in her community.” Right? Right. So, unless you are one of the chosen few, you will need to prep for a marathon, not a sprint. This is both a mental and emotional adjustment that needs to be made. Prep for the long haul!

Develop a learning attitude. You have perhaps heard it said, “Leaders are readers.” It is true. Even more so, leaders are learners. I don’t know any leader who has attained any level of leadership who doesn’t keep him or herself on the edge of learning. One of my mentors runs a company that you would all know by name – in fact, you probably used one of their products today, no matter where you live in the world – that does billions of dollars a year in revenue (Yes, with a “b”) and he still takes time each year to go to a school of leadership! He is already a tremendously successful leader yet he is still working on it! THAT is a learning attitude! If you want to lead, prep yourself for it by developing a learning attitude.

Acquire a love for people. In reality, we do not lead organizations or businesses. No, we lead people. We are successful if we know how to lead people. People are the name of the game. And the best way to become a leader of people is to love people. Others can tell instinctually whether or not we love them and have their best interests at heart. If they do not know that we care for them they will not follow. Leadership is the art of directing people who we care for and desire to help. In other words, we love people. If you have an issue with people, chances are you are not ready to lead them. To prep yourself for leadership, acquire a love for people. If the other things are in place, then they will want to.. missing rest of article…

It was Socrates who said that the purpose of philosophy is to help each of us become “an excellent human”. That seems like a respectable and reasonable big-picture goal for every person on the planet.

But what about the specifics? How do we become excellent humans? How can we use philosophy in our everyday lives to help us succeed in this most important goal as homo sapiens?

The surprising thing about philosophy is that it is incredibly user-friendly if you take it in small doses. For thousands of years, thoughtful individuals have contemplated the meaning of life. Many of the greatest philosophers spoke eloquently about the challenges we all face today in words that are easily understood and truly inspiring.

Don’t believe it? Let’s start with a few thoughts from Aristotle. The student of Plato, who was the student of Socrates, Aristotle lived in the third century B.C. But don’t hold that against him! Aristotle was full of interesting ideas, and he had quite a sense of humor as well. He’s a guy you could imagine sitting in your kitchen, engaging in a memorable conversation over a shared bottle of wine. Think of him as a really wise friend, and use his ideas to help you TODAY to become a more excellent human.

Aristotle believed that everything had a purpose. He stated that our purpose as humans is to think in order to live a good life. That’s it. As long as we continue to contemplate the universe and our role in it, we are fulfilling our purpose.

So, to help you contemplate the universe today, here are five inspiring thoughts from our friend, Aristotle:

Thought #1:

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

What is it that you repeatedly do? Greet people on the street, let another car into a busy street in front of you, leave nice tips for frazzled waitpersons, read to your children, phone your elderly aunt? What do your habits say about you? Is that the message you want to send?

How can you change your habits or adopt new ones to reflect your desire to become more excellent? What excellent acts can you do repeatedly so that they become a habit? What can you do TODAY to intentionally start a habit that will lead to excellence? Pick something simple and just get started.

Thought #2:

“Education is the best provision for old age.”What are you learning these days?

How are you spending your free time? Take a look at how you are including learning in your daily life. Do you read? If so, are you learning from it? Do you watch television? Yes, it can be educational, but seriously analyze your viewing habits and see if you can’t incorporate more learning and less vegetating.

Don’t pick something boring. Choose ways to learn that excite and inspire you. A cooking class through your local community college? A new sport? A stack of library books on a country you’re hoping to visit someday? Pursue your interests with a passion, and you will always continue learning. Promise yourself you’ll always have interesting things to talk about when you are old—and this doesn’t mean ailments and treatments! Learn now how to ignite your own curiosity and pursue learning as a lifelong adventure.

Thought #3:

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

We all do it—-we hear an idea, and we immediately attach ourselves to an opinion about it without really giving it the time it takes to form a reasoned conclusion. The problem with smart people is that we tend to use our intelligence to argue in defense of our chosen opinions. We’d be a whole lot wiser if we did less arguing and more thinking!

The next time someone makes a suggestion you don’t like or states an opinion you disagree with, try this: Wait three minutes before denouncing it. Now, this doesn’t that you should just sit there, fuming or smug or disinterested. Instead, “entertain” the thought. Ask questions. Show interest. Be open, engaged and nonconfrontational. When your three minutes are up, you can feel free to express your original opinion. More often than not, your original opinion will have changed a bit because you have spent some time holding a thought without attacking it.

The trick here is to separate the thought from the thinker. Are you sure you don’t dislike the thought because you dislike the thinker? We all have people in our lives who push our buttons. Take the high road. Entertain the thought. Your eventual rebuttal will be more easily accepted after you’ve shown that you have carefully considered the concept. Try this at work, try it with your friends, try it with your family. This is a surefire path to excellence.

Thought #4:

“What lies in our power to do, also lies in our power not to do.”

Ah, yes. Those bad habits? You can change them. If you had the initiative at some point to do something, you can choose to stop doing it. This goes for overeating, smoking, drinking too much, and all the usual bad habits.

It also hold true for things we don’t even think of as habits anymore—watching too much television, driving instead of walking, reading nothing but celebrity magazines, gossiping, spending too much time shopping, etc. If you haven’t always done it, you don’t have to continue doing it. You do have the power to make changes.

Thought #5:

“Well begun is half done.”

We all understand that setting a goal, doing the research, and making a plan will increase the likelihood that our chosen task will be successfully completed. Whether it’s a home improvement project, a vacation schedule, or a tricky new recipe, proper preparation will save us a lot of time and effort.

Start using Aristotle’s ideas today to help you become an excellent human. Make your best acts your best habits. Learn something new each day. Entertain contrary thoughts. Begin to undo bad habits. Prepare yourself for excellence.

Aristotle would be so proud.