This quote by Mr. Andretti sums up the messages that can be found in most books on motivation, success or achievement. They are very powerful words that carry an essential message about the science and art of success. However in that quote and in most works treating the subject of achievement one element is blatantly missing.

The teachings of self-improvement focus intensively on attitude but it is sorely lacking on character building. Even with the best attitude in the world, true success is not attainable if there is a character flaw. It would be wrong to say that successful people share the same character traits as those who are still struggling.

To be truly effective, any work done on self-improvement should concentrate more on character building than on attitude, techniques or methods. Before it is possible to achieve, a person has to be the kind of person that can do the type of things that needs to be done in order to get whatever the person is after.

Success is more attracted than pursued. If we ask successful people how they managed to acquire their success, the answer is invariably the same. They will say that it was easy. They cannot even understand why anyone else could not do it. The reason for that is simple. These people were already successes before they became successful.

How can you be a success before you become successful? Success is above all a state of mind. A person who feel like a success will think and act like a successful person and reap the rewards. A person who simply would like to become a success probably won’t achieve more that stay at the level of an “I-would-like-to-be-a-success.”

Maxwell Maltz of psycho-cybernetic fame says, “Self-image sets the boundaries of individual accomplishment” To get the things that we want the most, the first thing that need to be done it to change the self-image. In order to do that, a fundamental change in character is required.

If we want to change the results that we get in any area of endeavor, the first thing that must be done is a change in self-image and the only way that a true change in self-image can be affected is by changing our character.

According to Stephen Covey, our character is basically a composite of our habits. So, to changes character and thus change the self-image, we must change our habits; especially change the habitual way that we perceive ourselves.

A new thinking pattern has to be created regarding the self-image. The negative self-views have to be erased from the mind and be replaced by the image of the vibrant, effective and successful person that we basically are. We were born successes; at age three we were the most important person in the world.

Sadly, as time flew by, we experienced setbacks. Instead of experiencing those setbacks as learning experiences, they were viewed as evidences of personal flaws. In many cases, the self-image suffered permanent damages.

Anyone who is serious about a life of success and achievement has to restore that winning self-image. Until that is accomplished, the best intentions and the best techniques on self-improvement are not much more than vague and ephemeral theories. We have to be… before we can do… before we can have.

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Your ship is sailing. Either you grab the elm and steer it where you want it to go or someone else will do it for you. We are all on a grand voyage called life. It can be a fantastic odyssey of epic proportion or it can be a desperate struggle for survival. We get to decide which course we will take.

That’s a decision that we are very fortunate to be able to make. Anyone who can read these lines has tools, resources and opportunities that were not available just a few decades ago and that are still unheard off in some countries. We are blessed beyond beliefs.

With the click of a mouse, we have access to all the information that we may want or need. With another click of the mouse, we can communicate instantly through all four corners of the globe. That same mouse allows us to create in a few instants what would have taken weeks and maybe months just a few decades ago.

We live in countries where health cares are available to everyone. We are all assured that our basic necessities will be taken care off. Even our most modest dwelling is more comfortable than the sprawling mansions of just a century ago. We are twice blessed.

That is, we are twice blessed if we chose to believe that we are. We are twice blessed if we chose to take advantage of all the opportunities that are available. We are twice blessed if we decide where we want to go; plan a course to get there then find within ourselves the resolve to execute that plan.

We are sitting at a banquet table and all that is required to feast on that full course meal is the courage to stand up and claim our legitimate birthright. Everything that is needed for a successful life is at our disposal. It’s right there, in front of our eyes. Just waiting to be discovered and used.

We live in a world of our own creation. We get to decide what things and events mean for us. Where a man will see a simple acorn, another one will see a budding, and soon to be, mighty oak tree shaped into exquisite furniture. What is garbage in the eye of a person is valuable recycling material in the views of another.

If we don’t choose to consciously design and implement the life of our choice, we are left with the robotic option. That is, just like a robot, being guided and at the mercy of outside influences. Not much of a life. More like a life’s sentence than the great gift that it was meant to be.

There are times when life does not unfold as we would like. When that happens, it can create frustration or be seen as a learning experience. That will depend whether a person is pro-actively creating a life or just visiting Planet Earth as a casual tourist hoping that the powers that be will attend to his every desires and wishes.

Like never seen before, we are surrounded with resources and opportunities just waiting for us to use them to create the life that we want. It’s all there, up for grabs by anyone who decides to actively take control of his life and turn it into the masterpiece that it was meant to be. However, no one will chew our food for us.

We are the one who must take responsibility for our life. We are the one who must design it and implement that design. It’s our ship. Either we steer it and bring it to the port of our choice or we can let the winds and the tides drag it until it crashes on some rocky shores.

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Life is not biographical and the past does not equate the future. With every day that is given us, multiple paths are open to us and, if we so desire, we may decide to follow any of these paths and drastically change the course of our life. I may not be easy, but it’s possible.

It is said that, “A person can recognize a tree by its fruit.” Same with people – same with us. The results that we get in life are the fruits of our actions/decisions and those actions and decisions are the fruits of who we are. If we want to affect major and lasting changes in our lives, we must change who we are.

To change who we are, we must change our character. Stephen Covey said, “Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Change your habits and you change your character.”

Covey’s admonition may not be the easiest route but it’s certainly the safest and most effective. People change from inside out, not by changing the stripes on the Zebra. Changing from inside out means changing the character, changing the stripes on the Zebra simply means using the latest technique or gimmick promoted by some success gurus to get the things that we want out of life.

There are two reasons that people fail to change. First it’s because they don’t believe that it’s possible or they try to do it by using the band-aid solutions so prevalent in the self-improvement culture. We don’t change my altering our behavior, we change by improving our character. A change in behavior will only be temporary unless it is accompanied by a change in character.

To change our character we must decide to raise our standards. We must decide exactly what it is that we will no longer accept from ourselves and make the commitment to change it. This may be hard or it may be relatively easy. It all depends on the level of determination that we have. If we have reached the threshold of tolerance and decide that our old way of life is no longer acceptable, it will be easy. If we are wishy-washy in our resolve, changes will be next to impossible.

We can take responsibility for our life and for the outcome of our actions or we can chose to be a helpless victim. As a victim, we have only the satisfaction to feel that we are not responsible for what happens to us. If we chose to take responsibility, we are in control. Instead of focusing on what is happening to us, we’ll work on what we can do to change it. Most of the time that work will be focused on who we are, on our character or lack thereof.

We recognize a tree by its fruits, and we recognize who we are by the outcomes that we produce. If we want to change those outcomes, first, we must change who we are. Not simply change our behavior but change who we fundamentally are, that is, our character. That is done by changing our habits.

It is never too late. Today is the first day of the rest of our life and where we will be in life ten years from now is determined by what we do today. If we want the great future that we dream of, we must become the great person that we can be.

Life will give us what we expect of it so long as we understand that we are the one who is responsible for the outcomes that awaits us. Dare to change, dare to be great. Be all that you can be and you’ll enjoy the best future that you can possibly have. That is not fiction, it’s reality.

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First it must be understood that the personal image is not primarily addressed to the left brain logic but to the right brain emotions. We feel a person’s image much more than we coldly analyze it. A person is “seen” with the heart and not with the brain.

It must also be remembered that our interpretation of a personal images is determined by what is called an “a priori.” An a priori is a deduction made from past observations and conclusion. In other words, we evaluate what a person’s image means to us by automatically comparing it to our previous experience of similar images.

As and example, most people would see a chubby person as being jovial and easy going. Such a conclusion is not based on facts but on previous experience and popular notions. An image is exactly what it says, it’s an image and not a reality so it can be rebuilt, modified and enhanced to our advantage.

When working on the personal image, the first consideration must be the target of the intended image. What will appeal to teenagers will be vastly different than if the business or professional world is targeted. The rock star image will go quite well with teenagers while Donald Trump will be more fitting in the business or professional world.

The image presented will be perceived mostly by the senses and it must appeal to what’s needed and wanted by your targeted community. That is, if you are a businessman, you must look like a prosperous businessman who does not have a care in the world, talk the part and walk it. However, if you are in the community service you cannot afford to go around in a Rolls Royce wearing $3,000 suits. The image must fit the community.

The best role models for the personal image are the people who are successful in your field. These people should be studied, copied and emulated as much as possible.

The personal image is the tribune upon which a person stands to deliver his message. It is the lens through which a person is judged, cataloged and perceived. It is the “you” that the world see, accept, reject or ignore. It is your personal brand for all to see. A lot of your successes and failures depend on it. So, treat it well, improve it as much as possible but don’t get bent out of shape if it happens to be rejected by some.

You can’t please everyone every time. So, don’t overlook the positive many for the negative few. Create the best possible personal image and wear it proudly. It’s your personal trademark for all to see so make it a good one.

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Selling is done through persuasion. Most selling that we do everyday is easy because the “buyers” are already ready and disposed to accept. Everyday we must “sell” ourselves to our spouse, our family, our friends – but that’s easy to do because they are already disposed to be sold. In other situations though, the selling, or persuasion needs more skill and more work.

That is where Newton’s first law of physic comes into play. That law states that, “an object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” As far as we are concerned, the important part of that law is the last part which says, “object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction.’

That is true with an object in motion and it’s also true with our psyche. When a train of thoughts leads in one direction it becomes harder and harder to switch it around. If a person agrees with you and agrees with you for a length of time it becomes harder and harder to change position and start disagreeing with you.

So, if we want to convince someone of something that may prove to be difficult to accept the best course of action is to start asking question that we are almost certain will illicit a “yes” response.

Questions like, “Would you like to solve this problem?” Followed by, “You would like to pay as little as possible for that service don’t you?” Those questions will illicit a “yes” response and after awhile a pattern is set up. The “yes” responses become natural and easier and easier to give.

That is when the time for the clincher comes. Time to ask, do you want to buy my product, proposition, idea or suggestion? If there is any chance that whatever it is that you are proposing will be accepted, chances are very good that it will be at that point.

The point of the thread is that, just as an object in motion tends to stay in motion, a person who has been saying yes, yes, yes… will find it harder to say no. Not impossible, but harder.

So, whenever you are trying to convince anyone of anything, get the person in a positive mood, get them to say yes or accept propositions that they cannot refuse and then come up with the proposition that you wanted to have accepted in the first place.

Life is selling and in order to get ahead we need to know the tricks of the trade. That was one of them.

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To put it in other words, being rich does not mean having resources it means having resourcefulness.

We can always lose our resources but, so long as we are healthy, no one can rob us of our resourcefulness.

I had a brother who, at one time, was worth upward of twenty million dollars but he had the poverty mindset and, no matter how well he would do financially, he always felt insecure about money or about his own survival for that matter. That feeling got so bad that he started having panic attacks.

The problem was that he was identifying with his bank account and not with his resourcefulness. First and foremost, we are who we are and not what we have. A fundamental belief based on false premises cannot withstand the tides of time. Sooner or later the truth has to emerge and the edifice supported by false beliefs will crumble.

Two years ago, I lost my beloved brother. Cancer took him away. I felt a strong sense of loss but what hurt the most was knowing that he had not been able to find peace and happiness throughout his adult years. That was the great tragedy.

Money is a tool and nothing else, and like any other tool, it can help or hurt us depending on how we use it. Whether we believe it or not, money can be a friend or a foe. It all depends on how we look at it.

First, it must be understood that we do not “own” money. We cannot go to the bank and ask a teller to “see our money.” Such a request would probably be cause to question our sanity. We do not “own” money but we have the permission and the right to manage the amount of money that is indicated in our bank account.

A small but all important distinction. If we can manage money we can affect its flow inward or outward but we are at no risk of losing what is not “ours” in the first place. That small distinction takes all the stress out money matters.

Being rich means being free from monetary worries and monetary considerations. It means understanding that money is like air. There is enough for everyone and all that we have to do is to place ourselves in a situation where we will have access to that resource.

Money plays a very important role in our lives yet the concept of money is greatly misunderstood. Money is a tool and as with any other tool, it not the amount of any specific tool that we have that really matters, but how well we understand that tool and how well we can manipulate it that makes all the difference.

Having large amount of money will never make us feel rich but having ample supply of resourcefulness will. So, let us not concentrate on gathering money if security is high on our priority list but let us work on who and what we are because that is what will increase our level of resourcefulness and that’s what being rich and secure is all about.

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Some things are important, these are the majors, others have little significance in our lives, they are the minors. Some things can be changed to improve the quality of our lives, those also are also the majors. Some things are beyond our reach and cannot be influenced no matter how much we try, they, again, are the minors

Successful living requires controlled focus, dynamic passion and a sharp sense of direction. None of these factors can be ignored or wasted on unproductive minor endeavors.

That is not to say that life should be all work and no play. But it does suggest that we should get our priorities straight. What’s important comes first and is given major consideration whereas what is only matter of interest should take the back seat and be relayed to secondary positions.

The problem with what has been proposed so far is the fact that what we have been qualifying as the majors, or to put it into other words, what is important in the quality of our life, demand work and efforts that are not considered compelling. They are not considered to be fun things to do.

They have not considered fun things to do because they have been initially undertaken without the proper preparations. No time or thoughts have been given to set up the optic from which those tasks will be viewed.

Shakespeare said, “Nothing is either good or bad but our thinking makes is so.” It can also be said, no job is either good or bad, fun or dull, but our thinking make it so.

Changing the lens with which we view our job or profession, which usually is the number one “major” that can affect the quality of our life, does require some imagination, it does require some thinking but it can always be done and it must be done.

It must be done if we want to see our life’s work as fun, exciting, and compelling so that we can be passionate about it and make it simple for us to major on what matters rather than wasting our time and majoring on the minor.

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Lack of resource is the mother of invention. Lack of resources stands behind almost every great breakthroughs. Lack of resources should not be viewed as a handicap but as an opportunity for creativity and growth.

My Dad was a simple man. He never had the chance to get a superior education but he left me with an incredible gift. He taught me about resourcefulness. He showed me that our greatest asset is not money in the bank, not influential friends, not prestige or power but resourcefulness.

We grew up in a family of very modest means but none of us ever lacked anything. The money may not have been there but resourcefulness certain was, so we always had everything that we ever needed.

Resourcefulness is nothing but imagination in action. You need a resource that you don’t have – what do you do? You brainstorm. You write down as many solutions as you can on how you could do without that particular resource and keep your project alive and progressing.

Most of the solutions that you will come up with will be worthless. However, out of that brainstorming a flame of hope will shine upon one of those solutions. You keep exploring that venue and sooner or later your problem will be solved. Resourcefulness will have compensated for the lack of resources.

There is always more than one way to skin a cat. If it cannot be done one way there are always another. We’ve all heard these words before but we seem to forget them when we most need them.

Money is not the most important resource. Resourcefulness is. That is because you can lose all your money, but unless you get sick, you will always have your resourcefulness.

At one point in my life, I was hosting a TV show on health. I wanted to interview the leading medical authorities in my hometown but I soon found out that medical specialists were not very found of being interviewed by a chiropractor, which is what I am. So, I had to get some leverage. What I did was to get in touch with the doctor who was number one on the totem pole of the medical community.

That guy was a cardiologist who rode a red Ferrari and had an ego that was bigger than a barn door. He was the head rooster in town. I knew that that a guy like that could not turn down a chance to appear on TV. So, I invited him on the show. Of course he agreed.

The word spread around that Dr. Bigshot had been on my show and after that, the telephone never stopped wringing. No other specialist wanted to feel that they could not do what this guy had done. Each and everyone of the specialists appeared on the show.

Resourcefulness had won over resources. It always does. A lesson that I never forgot and will always use.

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It’s a key question for self-improvement. It’s a key question to improve our business, our relationships and our overall effectiveness. It’s a question that should be asked whenever some planning is done. It’s a question that will promote action and solve problems. It’s also the logical starting point to improve the quality of whatever it is that we are involved with.

If there is a factor that will solve most problems and guarantee success it would be found in the concept of quality. Quality is supreme. Quality defines worth and desirability. It raises value and promotes effectiveness. Quality reigns supreme and is the cornerstone of all great achievement.

However, ultimate quality is never achieved. It can always be improved upon. Thus the need for the question, “What’s not perfect yet?”

So, when we are stumped instead of asking ourselves, “What should I do now” which actually is a non question that usually leads nowhere, we should come up with the proverbial, “What’s not perfect yet?”

The subconscious will always answer the question that we ask it. However, we must be careful to always ask the right question. If you ask the subconscious, “Why am I not rich?” The subconscious could answer, “Because you’re stupid?” But, if we ask the subconscious, “How could I become rich?” the subconscious will do its very best to answer that question.

It never fails. Ask the subconscious the right question and it will come up with the right answer. However, at times, we cannot even come up with the right question. Things are so intricate or seem to be so hopeless that nothing comes to mind as far as to what the right question could be and that is when the magical question, “What’s not perfect yet?” comes in handy.

That question will help us when relationships go sour, it will help when business has taken a downturn, it will help when we are not satisfied with our progress in self-actualization and self-development and it will help in most other areas of our life. So, do yourself a favor. When you are in doubt about what should be done, ask the all inclusive question, “What’s not perfect yet?”

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Nothing great ever was achieved without passion. Passion will give you energy, creativity, endurance and the wherewithal to surmount almost any obstacle. Passion is essential to great achievements.

Biographies clearly demonstrate that a common trait among super-achiever is passion. Passion for life, passion to excel, passion to achieve.

Passion is the offspring of imagination. Creative passion is not about what is, it’s about what could be. That kind of passion has its roots in the future but its effectiveness in the present. The anticipation of the joy that the results will be, flames to efforts to achieve.

A day without passion is like a day without sunshine. Passionate people live, dispassionate people exist.

The one drawback of passion is that it can lead to excess and lack of critical judgment. Passion must be coupled with reason. Wild excess are counterproductive however subdued and controlled passion is foundation of achievement and greatness.

We must dare to dream. We must dare to see big. We must dare to think outside of the box. We must dare to believe that we have a manifest destiny and that we were given the tools and resources to fulfill it.

Our personal voyage on Planet Earth is a one way trip. It will not be repeated. It is our duty to make it count. To make the most of it. To make the most of it so that when the final curtain falls, there will be no regret.

William Penn said, “If there is any Kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow human being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.”

Passion inspired by that fundamental principle will create the magic that will transform an ordinary life into a triumphant existence.

Believe in yourself. Live you life with passion. And watch miracles happen.

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