What I mean by that is complete your assignments or projects to the highest standard you can. All too many times, I see people giving a partial effort in a project and the outcome is less than desirable. Perhaps you get to the end of a certain project and you feel rushed to get it done and move on. I would urge you to reach within yourself for added strength to do the job right.

Your reputation is what will bring additional opportunities and increased abundance into your life. Don’t leave an assignment uncompleted or to sub-standard condition.

People do notice how you finish things. Let me rephrase that…people who can take you to new levels of prosperity notice and you could be missing opportunities to increase your situation in life.

If you’re in business or any kind of sales, this principle will serve you well. If you can keep a commitment, you will distinguish yourself from the vast amount of people who, at their own peril, are not willing to do so.  And if you know you can’t perform a given task, just tell the person you can’t do it. Too many times in sales, we want to promise things to our clients, thinking that if we can’t perform this one aspect, we will lose the deal. What I’ve found in most instances is that you won’t lose the deal. In fact, you will be demonstrating what few people ever do…you will be willing to walk away from a deal.

If keeping a commitment is hard for you, don’t fret, change is possible.  Start small and work your way up.

Most importantly, keep the commitments you make to yourself.

A great mentor taught me that if what you’re doing has no problems in it, there’s no opportunity there. Often, we want success but we don’t want any obstacles along the way.  In fact, when we achieve something with very little effort, we are often surprised because we thought it was going to be harder.

You can often determine the size of the person by the size of the problems he or she has had to overcome in life. Likewise, you can often determine the income you make by the amount of problems you’ve solved for people in life.

Face it, there are going to be problems in life. Embrace it and become a problem solver if you want to succeed. Change your thinking, change your philosophy regarding the problems you face. Your attitude will determine how well you do.

Credit to Jeff Olsen, author of “The Slight Edge” for inspiration of this post.

Have you ever looked at someone successful and said to yourself “ah..they’re just one of the lucky ones…” If you have, you’re not alone, in fact, this is a widely held belief by many people. I’ll also state that it’s what holds you and me back from advancing in our lives.

I recently read a book entitled “Talent is Overated” by Geoff Colvin. A link to his book can be found here. In his book, Geoff peals back the layers of what really makes people great. People like professional atheletes or professional musicians or sales pros. What I really like about this book is that it debunks the myths that successful people are “lucky” or that it’s “easy”.

What he uncovered through his research is that on average, those at the top of their field had 10,000 hours of focused practice in that field. If you work 40 hours a week, that would be 2,000 per year, thus 10,000 would be accomplished in 5 years. However, all 40 hours per week would have to be focused practice on a certain skill or talent.

A study was conducted on violinists from the Music Academy of West Berlin, known for producing some of the world’s most talented violinists. Researchers collected data on three groups. Groups were considered good, better and best. It’s important to note, that by layman’s standards, these 3 groups would appear that no differences existed between them.

When it came down to the data, there began to be large differences in these 3 groups. The top group would become the world’s best.

So what was the major difference? Here’s what resided deep within the data of what separated the good from great.

By age 18, the violinists in the top performing group had accumulated 7,400 hours of lifetime practice. The medium group had practiced lifetime total of 5,301 hours and the bottom group a total of 3,420 lifetime hours. When we look at the facts, we see a significant difference in the groups.

At the end of the day, to be great requires 1000′s of hours of focused practice.

Even Bobby Fischer, the great chess player put in the time. At age 16 he had already been studying for 9 years! Mozart, though considered to be a child prodigy, didn’t write his famous Concerto no. 9 until he was 21 years old!

So what does this mean for you and I? To me it means there are no shortcuts in life…the price must be paid. And the price is time, it’s focused practice for 10,000 hours to become the best.

The great news is you can have lots of fun and make good money along the way.

I consider a great book to be a book written by someone who has achieved greatness in their life. This is subjective of course. You get to decide what is great for you. No matter what your chosen field of focus is, are you reading books by those individuals who have achieved the highest levels of success?

When you read a book, what you are reading is the very best that person has to offer–all compressed into about 200 pages.  It’s the very best of that individual. This is truly remarkable.

If you’re not reading at least 5 minutes (and preferably 20 minutes) from a great book in your chosen discipline, you’re robbing yourself from the opportunity to mentor with the best.

Some of my greatest mentors are people who are not living anymore. People like Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie, and Jim Rohn.

My challenge to you is to read great books, and start today.

Most people would consider leadership a “title” or something you get voted into. Under this scenario, government officials would be considered leaders along with DMV employees (heaven forbid). Also on the “leadership” list would be CEO’s and VP’s of Fortune 500 companies such as Enron, AIG and MCI Worldcom, just to name a few.

Leadership is so much more than a title or position someone holds. When I think of leadership, I think of Ghandi–who held no official office–and yet is known to be of the great leaders and thinkers in the annals of history. Ghandi made a decision that he would lead on his own. He did not ask for permission, he just did it. Steven R. Covey talks about Ghandi quite a bit in his audio series called “Beyond the 7 Habits.” I highly recommend it.

A good friend of mine, Kevin Hall, recently wrote a book called “Aspire”. You deserve to read this book about power of words and their meaning.(click here for link on Amazon.com)  In that book, there’s a chapter on leadership, which frankly, blew me away. I won’t spoil all the fun for you if you decide to read the book, but basically leader stems from the word pathfinder.  Pathfinders of ancient times were the ones who found food for the tribe, etc. They were the ones who could tell where the game was travelling. An entire village would depend on these “pathfinders”.

So it is in our day, leaders are the ones who go out and find the path for others to follow. But in order to find the path for others, one must know their own path. There is no title required for this, only a decision. A daily decision to do those things which will create the desired result.

The next time you catch yourself waiting for someone with a “title” to do something, think of the word “pathfinder” and know that it’s up to you.

So back to the meaning and core of this blog…it’s the things we do daily that create our life. Rarely, if ever, is one single event going to define our life. Successful people do small, yet important, things daily which eventually lead to a life of success and meaning.

I created this blog mainly as a way for me to keep myself accountable to the daily things I must do to create lasting meaning in my life.  Since we all have a different definition of success, I’ll use the word “meaning” here.

My posts are raw, organic and often un-edited. They are sort of my journal entry to the world.  My hope is that you, or anyone you share this with, will benefit from my life’s experiences.

Remember, it’s not what we do that determines what kind of life we create for ourselves, it’s what we do DAILY that really matters in the end.

When we just can’t wait to tell our story of what just happened to us, instead of listening intently to the story being shared with us, we fail to truly understand human communication.

The next time you feel the urge to match someone else’s story with your story, bite your tongue and watch what happens. You’ll actually come away with more, and your friend will truly appreciate that you care about them.

Listening truly is an art, and I’d like to recommend an audio book that I listened to recently that helped me get back on track to becoming a better listener, see image below. Happy listening!

John C. Maxwell wrote a great book about this called “Failing Forward”.  I highly recommend it.