JohnKowalsky.com
A Self Evolving Site
Archive for October, 2008
Baby Steps To Success
Oct 23rd
When I began my journey of self evolution I wondered how it was possible that the people I most wanted to be like had attained their success. Were they just lucky? If so, how could I become lucky? Were they born into it? I was out of luck on that one. Or was it the entirety of their path? Maybe it wasn’t any one factor… maybe it was all of them.
I’ve since come to see that no matter what it looks like on the outside, all successful people follow the unwritten rules of success. There are many of these rules and I believe most successful people aren’t even aware of them. Most likely they just picked up their success habit from watching their parents work ethic or aligning themselves with the right kind of friends. There are many principles that lead to success. The one I want to talk about today is the principle of Success builds more Success.
Seems like a no-brainer right? But it’s an often over-looked fact of life. The more you have, the more you’re going to get. Even Jesus said, “To him that has, more will be given.”
Think about it in your own life. Let’s say you are wrongly accused of a crime you didn’t commit. The charges are serious and you are facing some serious jail time. What kind of defense lawyer do you want? The cheapest? The most spiritual? Or is it the one who is most successful at defending his clients?
What about the restaurants you like to eat in? Have you noticed that the majority of the time you go out to eat at busy restaurants? Is the food really that good, that you would wait in line for an hour for a table? Or when you finally get that table, and you have to listen to the entire dining room’s conversation, because everyone is talking at the top of their voice? It’s a nice way to relax and enjoy a meal, isn’t it? Maybe you’re drawn there for the same reason everyone else is… It’s a successful restaurant and people are drawn to success, we can’t help it.
Consider the buzz surrounding new bands, and movies, and television shows. Have you ever seen the trailer for a movie and been really excited to see it, so you stand in line, buy your tickets, and discover that you’ve just wasted thirty dollars of your hard earned money? How does this happen? Because one of the ways that marketing works is they show you the illusion of success, which in turn leads you to buy their product.
So, success builds success. That’s all well and good, but what do you do if you haven’t had any success yet? I mean it seems like a really good deal, the snowball of success, where your previous success ensures future success, like a wheel that keeps turning round, but how do you get success to begin with? Glad you asked.
You start where every successful person who has ever lived has started… At the beginning, with nothing! Not nothing, as in no money or tools or talent, although that may be the case in your particular situation, but nothing, as in no success to build upon. Everyone who is anyone has had to start somewhere. So where do we begin…?
We begin with baby steps. That’s right, just like learning to walk, learning success begins with baby steps. If you’re willing to play a game with me, for the next 30 days, pick a task that you have been putting off. Whether it is chores around the house or writing a paper for school, or just calling up someone who you’ve been putting off talking to. Pick your deed for the day, and then, as Nike has taught you, Just Do It! Don’t think about what else you might have to do that day… focus on getting this one job done. And then when you do, guess what? You’ve just started you’re own success snowball. Pick another task for day two, and do it. Another for day three, and so on and so forth. Build your success snowball a little more every day, and soon enough it will be big enough to roll downhill all by itself, just like in those old cartoons.
There’s no shortcuts to success, and no one else will do it for you. But if you keep building momentum, every day will be that much easier, until your hard-to-break habit in life is success. You won’t be able to help but have it. So get to work, or don’t… it’s all up to you.
Do Something, Do Anything
Oct 21st
Talkers! Everybody knows at least one of them. They flap their gums all day long without ever managing to say much of anything. You might even be one of them. I know I was.
I was the kind of person who would go on and on about what I really wanted to do with my life, while at the same time whining and complaining about how my life really was. I knew all about what I didn’t want, and I even began to think and talk about what I did want.
I would get all excited about what I was going to do and I would talk to my friends about it, and then a few days later my excitement would be gone, along with whatever momentum and motivation I might have had. Does this sound familiar? Do you know someone like this? Is this someone maybe, You? Don’t worry if it is. The solution is fun and simple: Do Something!
It doesn’t matter if you don’t know everything you need to yet… just do something, Do Anything but sit there and talk and think about what you want to do. It’s called the Ready, FIRE!, Aim method. At some point you will need to take aim, but start doing something today. Do that thing you’ve been putting off, or start writing that book you’ve been talking about. Start your online business, or begin getting in shape and feeling good about yourself.
A good attitude and outlook, and healthy, powerful thoughts are necessary, but if you never take any action then the Universe will never manifest what you want. The other part of the Secret that no one ever talks about is Action! For instance, have you ever noticed that when you’re busy doing something, you don’t have time to be un-Happy. It’s when you’re sitting around doing nothing that you want to do that un-happiness occurs.
In his book You’re Broke Because You Want To Be, Larry Winget says, “What you say you want means almost nothing. When every action you make contradicts your words, your words don’t mean a damn thing.”
Words do have power. What you say does matter, but unless you are a person of Action, your words are robbed of their power to change lives. If you’re not acting in accordance with your desires, than any actions you are taking are contradicting what you want. And what do you think speaks louder to the Universe? Actions or Words? So by all means, talk and dream and think, but do something, any thing at all… The river will flow all by itself, you just have to jump in it.
How Championships Are Won
Oct 20th
Like many of you folks out there, I tend to watch what happens in baseball when October comes around. Last night the young, never-done-anything-before Tampa Bay Rays defeated the big, bad Boston Red Sox. The series was a classic David and Goliath match-up, even though Tampa Bay had a better record almost all season long. The series was great, and I won’t bore you with the details. I went to bed last night, not thinking about the game at all, but apparently my subconscious had other ideas.
I dreamt baseball last night… Not Major League, going to the World Series baseball, but Little League. Somehow I was coaching this Little League team, and my old basketball coach was helping me out. Now he didn’t know much about baseball, since he was a basketball coach so I found myself coaching him as well. In between defensive drills and batting practice, I would send little coaching nuggets out to him and the players. Most of these nuggets I can’t remember because it was a dream, but the last one I had I do remember. It stuck in my head so much that I woke up from the dream, and after using the bathroom, stumbled back into my room and wrote it down in the dark.
My Coach and I were having practice and something happened, I can’t remember exactly what. Maybe the kids just weren’t getting what I was trying to teach them, or they didn’t want to practice or something like that. I just remember feeling frustrated with the team in my dream. They just didn’t understand!
So I called the team over and had them all take a knee, where I launched into what might have been the greatest inspirational speech of all time, but I only remember the last part, so I guess we’ll never know. The words, This Is How Championships Are Won! came out of my mouth. The dream quickly ended after that, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about those words and what they mean. I came to realize that even though it was a silly dream, filled with delusions of grandeur, there was a lot of truth to it.
When I told the kids, this is how championships are won, I remember I was trying to impress upon them the importance of practice and groundwork. The game between The Rays and The Red Sox was decided long before last night, it was won back in spring training, and all through the regular season.
Just like sports, business events and everyday life things are decided long before they arrive too. It’s the person who has spent everyday practicing and building habits of success that ends up taking the prize home nine times out of ten. So ask yourself, have you been practicing? And what kind of practice has it been? Do you see yourself winning the big game, or getting that new job or promotion? Or like the kids in my dream, would you rather go home and play video games?
Stay tuned as we look at some things we can do this week to practice success!
The Pursuit of The Way
Oct 17th
Most of us have heard of the scripture where Christ refers to himself as, The Way, The Truth, and The Life. As a young boy, I became fixated on this idea. I began searching out what this Way entailed. In my journey, I’ve been led through various religions, beliefs, mindsets, and all sorts of wack-jobs, and kooks, most of them claiming to be the end-all-be-all of whatever they were trying to sell. In the end, I’ve found that there is no end. The Way is not a destination, it’s a path, a journey if you will. To that end, I have created johnkowalsky.com to share what I have found and will find. In the hope, that maybe I can help someone else along on their journey of Self Evolving. It will be a broad experience, as life too covers a multitude of topics. Stay tuned for regular updates and if there is a topic you’d like to see addressed please send your requests to john@johnkowalsky.com Thank you dear Reader, I shall see you soon.
