It never ceases to amaze me how some people sabotage themselves and yet continue to blame everyone else around them.
Listen, people. Life is pretty freaking simple. Let me illustrate just how simple it is.
You set your sites on a goal, you acquire the information and skill set you need to achieve the goal, then you go after the goal with as much aggression and passion as you can until you get what you want. You get that "warrior eagle eye" focus and you just go for it.
Yet most people try to create more complication, usually in the form of 2 things:
1) Excuses - the more you try to negate responsibility by making 101 excuses as to why you cannot achieve a dream you have, it simply means you're either (a) not passionate/motivated with the life changes you'd "like" to see in your life, and/or (b) the thing(s) you claim you want in your life aren't really your dreams but maybe someone else's.
2) Blame - this is the part when you blame everyone else including, but not limited to, the president, the government, your parents, your siblings, taxes, lack of education because of...whatever reason, the fact that you're a certain race/sex/sexual orientation/from a certain country/too old/too young/whatever, or that the gods haven't parted the seas for you, sent a ship in to "rescue" you, or whatever other blame game you're playing with forces outside of yourself.
I look at people like my brother. He's a full-fledged alcoholic who bleeds the welfare system dry for every hand-out he can get. To me it takes more work to research programs and find ways to bend a government to get me stuff without having to work for it than to do the obvious: to actually work for it.
Then you have my former employee Jeanine. Same deal. Except that her set of excuses about why she can't get anywhere is completely different. Same result, though. Blame others for why she isn't making it and make excuses as to why she doesn't have time, money, resources, etc. to achieve what she wants.
Even worse. After I terminated her last week, she's finding it necessary to be vindictive in any way she can because...who the f*** knows why! It's like when someone breaks up with you and decides to move on. What purpose does it serve to stalk that person, upload nasty comments or dirty photos/videos of that person, or otherwise try to "ruin" them in some way? Do they hope to get that person back by doing all of this? Will it get them any further in life by ruining the life of someone else?
It just shows people's true colors.
But the worst part: they don't realize the karma they are reaping upon themselves by spewing such negative bullsh** into the world about other people. Then they have the audacity to wonder why they never get a break or can never get ahead. It's because they think like losers. Therefore, they get what losers get which is exactly nothing!
I was fortunate enough a long time ago to understand the boomerang effect of karma and how it works. And because it seems that things are "speeding up" in the universe, karma comes back much faster...almost instantaneously. It used to take a lifetime. Now it can be a matter of minutes.
What I keep telling people is that -- in addition to figuring out what you want to do and really going for it -- you have to treat others in the same way as what you expect to sow yourself. So, for example, if you don't want anyone taking a baseball bat and busting out your car windows with it...I strongly suggest you don't do the same thing to someone else.
What seems to floor me time and time again is that the very people who are not conducting their lives in the way they should (including maliciously hurting others, etc.) simply don't see what they're doing. It's like they're completely blind to it! It's amazing.
Could you be doing things that are sabotaging you?
What could I mean?
Maybe you're mean to people. Maybe you're not conducting yourself in a way that is putting out positive energy that you'll be getting back; instead maybe you're putting out negative things and getting negativity back.
Or maybe you're guilty of items #1 or #2...or both. Are you making excuses for yourself? Are you blaming others for what's going on in your life and/or why you're not successful?
You have all the benefits, resources, and opportunity to get anything you want in this lifetime right before you.
I was watching the news last night and there was a story on border patrol and immigrants trying to get into the United States. They're discovering that there are an alarming amount of kids trying to cross our American borders and they're without their parents or other adults! In certain areas of the world, including those south of our border, there is such political turmoil and strife that many people are trying to escape these conditions by coming here to our land of opportunity.
And that's just south of our border.
What about what's going on in the Middle East? There was yet another story about how about 500,000 people have been displaced from their homes and are fleeing to another bordering country in order to save their own lives. They showed video of kids sleeping in cars and outside on the ground; I couldn't help but to empathize because I have a young daughter. What would it be like to be forced from my home and to have to flee to another unknown country with little resources and with no idea what our future would hold? Where would we go? How would we survive? What would happen to the home we just left?
Listen, folks. We have it easy. Really easy. Ridiculously and amazingly easy! (Did I get my point across?)
And we're all lucky like you wouldn't believe.
Yet I see people every day who complain about how "bad" things are. Really? Are things really that bad for you? Why? Because they put 2% milk instead of soy milk in yourStarbucks coffee this morning? Because your boss is a jerk off due to the fact that you didn't finish a project that was due 2 weeks ago and he yelled at you? Because your iPhone 5 fell on the floor and broke today? Because some politician said something that personally "offended" you? Because you got a traffic ticket for blowing a red light?
Why do you believe your life is sooooo hard??
I wake up every morning and the first thing I do is tie back my curtains in my bedroom. I look out the window and I see an extraordinary resort-like backyard. I see the mountains in a pinkish-orange hue. Sometimes I see a light fog and it looks a little...mysterious. Sometimes I see a rabbit eating my plants. Sometimes there's a large bird, crow, or hawk standing on my back fence. But in every instance, I'm so incredibly grateful that I can feel this sense of excitement in my stomach. I simply cannot believe how awesome my life is.
No, I'm not where I'd ultimately like to be. But who cares? Setting the bar even higher gives you something else to strive for. And that's exciting. If you had everything dropped in your lap the moment you snapped your fingers, life would certainly suck. It would be boring and unfulfilled if you didn't have to work for anything or challenge yourself to get a goal.
If you feel like you hate your life and want something else, here's what you have to do:
1) Immediately stop complaining...about everything. Even if you think you have something legitimate to complain about, shut your trap. Please. You're hurting yourself by sending out negativity which will always come back like a boomerang to harm you. Considering how other people have it in the world, especially in war-ridden countries, you don't have a single f****** thing to complain about. And if you think you do, imagine being a 10-year-old kid who is forced to come up to America from Guatemala to avoid getting killed or dying of starvation...and you're alone because both of your parents are dead. And when you get to America, you're detained in unbearable overcrowded conditions with no rights and, in some cases, being beaten by border patrol. Imagine being that kid and then tell me that there's something wrong with yourlife right now! (Yeah, that's what I thought.)
2) Focus on yourself. Stop zeroing in on what other people are doing, saying, thinking, or wanting. This includes not clicking on those Yahoo! articles about Kim Kardashian and Kanye West or getting upset because some politician said that he hates gay people. If someone pisses you off, start letting things roll off your back...like really quick. If your significant other dumps you, don't spend an ounce of time being angry or vindictive. Move on. Focus on you and what you want...and figure out how to get there. Everyone else around you should be views as bees swarming around a beehive. They're there but you can tune them out and stay focused on yourself and what you want.
3) Start realizing how many incredible resources you already have. You may not have money or credit or talent or the things you believe you need to get yourself going but you are a lot farther ahead in the game than you think. Just by being in a country where you have endlessamounts of opportunity, presumably being able to speak English well, being educated to some degree to be able to perform basic intellectual functions, and being able to pick up a phone and communicate something with someone (or sending an email) puts you way ahead of someone who is -- somewhere in the world -- dreaming of a way just to be able to get to our country to start a life...any life! Look at what you have and where you are right now! You have so much opportunity and potential that it's mind-boggling!
4) Really narrow down what you want for yourself. This may seem like the hard part and, in actuality, it is. What I've found is that if you have an inkling of an idea of what you want to do (but you're not 100% sure), start following that path. Other things will open up for you once you start moving in some direction toward what you believe you want for yourself. The universe loves movement. Move in some positive direction and you will be directed to where you need to go. Move in no direction and you'll be sitting on your ass exactly where you are now except 10 years will have gone by. And you'll still be nowhere. (Scary thought, huh?)
5) Start getting the skills needed to get your goal. Centuries ago it was an accepted practice that someone would be an apprentice for many years and even decades to learn a trade or skill. These days people think they can watch a YouTube video for 10 minutes and somehow instantly have the precise skill set needed to accomplish some pretty lofty and grandiose goals. Even worse, many people are even too lazy to watch the 10-minute YouTube video because they somehow think that the information they want should somehow seep into their brains while they are sleeping in a sort of osmosis-type of fashion. Please. You're never going to get anywhere by being lazy and certainly other people aren't going to be doing the dirty work for you so that you can get ahead. (Instead they'll be doing it for themselves so they can get ahead instead.) This is why I tell people to get involved in things they are passionate about so then the learning and doing parts of getting what you want are fun and not "work."
6) Start swinging the bat using your new found skills. Lots of action is required to become successful. Some (if not most) of your actions won't amount to much. Any sales person can tell you that there are many more rejections than successes yet the most successful of those in sales understand that it's all about the numbers. The more rejections you get, the more successes you get. Anyone in direct mail knows that 99 out of 100 people will throw away your marketing mailing piece. Yet you can get filthy rich from that 1 out of 100 that buy your product. The majority of what you do will fail and/or get rejected. As long as you understand the law of numbers, you'll do extremely well in all of your endeavors if you just swing that bat as many times as you can. You'll undoubtedly hit your home runs, guaranteed. Even if you get 1 home run out of 100 swings, that's okay. But if you only swing the bat once...you can guess (by the law of numbers) how well that'll turn out for you. It won't. Period.
7) Have a level of persistence and commitment. One thing I could never understand about my dad was how flighty he always was. He'd start some type of business or endeavor and then he'd move onto the next thing within just a couple of weeks before he had a chance to get anything off the ground. Yes, you can get ahead by being a "quitter." After all, if you've been at something for 10 years and it's not panning out at all, maybe it's time to stop beating your head against the wall and start focusing on something else. But...after a couple of weeks? Days even? When should you quit and try something else? How long do you "stick with it" to see if something works out? That's subjective by person and by project, of course. You don't set out to build a ship then drop the project after 2 months because it's not finished. But if it's taking you 2 months to write a simple one-paragraph synopsis of the book you want to write then...maybe you're just not cut out for writing or you need a better skill set. Again, this all goes back to doing something you're passionate about so that you can push through the times of doubt and depression you will come up against when traveling on your goal path.
So, what do you do now? How does it all begin?
You have to figure out where you see yourself in a few years from now. What type of how do you want to be living in and where? What is your work lifestyle like? What's your home life like? How much do you make a year? How many vacations a year do you take? You have to think about the whole thing, even details of it.
This will help point you in the right direction.
Once you make some decisions, start getting your skill set in place. This is vital to being able to start swinging your bat, if you will.
So, how do you start building your skill set?
Funny you should ask!
I have a 2-day Total Wealth Building Boot Camp Seminar in Los Angeles on September 13th and 14th that will fully cover both Aggressive and Passive Income Strategies. In fact, this event will be so intense that I have a total of 4 speakers (including myself) and the speaking days will go about 2 hours longer each day than with prior events.
And for my 40th Birthday Weekend Blow Out (that ends on Wednesday), I'm offering a ridiculously low price to attend this event.
I've never offered this incredible of a deal before to attend any of my prior events. And once 5:01pm on Wednesday hits, you'll lose out on this one for good.
See you at the top!
Your mentor,
Monica Main
