Winners give up bad associations, partnerships and relationships.

What happens when pleasing others runs contrary to serving your own best interests? People all over the country have told me that they feel held back by the very people they believe should be helping them succeed. They secretly fear that their own family and friends work against their success…are they crazy? What is it about human nature that makes people a little bit jealous when they see us excel?

People are just like crabs in a bucket; family, can be like crabs in a tall bucket with a lid on it! If you ever have the chance to observe this behavior, do so…it’s fascinating. Imagine a bucket full of crabs…every so often, one will get ambitious and get its claw over the edge. It will start to pull itself up and get its second claw outside of the bucket. It can taste its freedom and its way back to the ocean. Right about this time, the other crabs notice his escape and, instead of cheering and pushing its fellow crab to freedom, the whole lot claws, grabs and pulls the nearly free crab back to the depths of their confinement. This repeats over and over, regardless of which crab tries to escape.

I don’t know exactly why crabs do it, but for people, it’s fear of success. They fear change. They fear the unknown. They fear that you’ll no longer be complicit in their complacency. Improving your own situation holds a mirror up to theirs and it’s easier for them to bring you back down to their level than to grow to yours.

One of the hardest choices you may have to make is to limit spending time with people who hinder your progress. Choose, instead, to surround yourself with like minded, success focused, proven winners. Better yet, spend time with those who are smarter, more driven, and more successful than you. When you abandon the negative thinkers, whiners, gossipers and the complacent, you’ll find yourself enjoying the freedom which lies just outside the bucket.

Winners give up wasting their time.

Are you one of the many that get “paralysis by analysis”? Do you spend considerably more time sitting around planning rather than doing? Do you delay progress while over-thinking a problem or, worse yet, imagining every conceivable negative contingency? I believe that many like the “idea” of being a winner, but when it comes to actually doing what it takes to be one, they get so wrapped up in unimportant details that they end up like a dog chasing its own tail.

I believe in taking a stand, having a game plan, and following it. It’s important to be organized, and well planned for efficiency. Yes, it’s important to anticipate problems, but successful people just get it done…period! Sometimes winners experience setbacks, as big as yours or mine, but they are always moving forward, even if it’s only inch by inch.

Make the decision to change your current status or situation, it only takes seconds! And be mindful of how you use your time; it’s precious. Newton’s first law of motion states: In the absence of force, a body is either at rest or moves in a straight line with constant speed. In layman’s terms: A body in motion tends to remain in motion; a body at rest tends to remain at rest.

Sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and dive right in…take a step, even if it’s a baby step. Pick up the phone and dial a number, send an email, deliver that application, call a meeting, confront the person holding back your project. Act with intention and see how your results begin to pile up. There are 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, and 60 seconds a minute. That’s 84,400 seconds in a day!! Winners, real winners, don’t waste a single one.

Winners give up blame.

Winners consistently use an ingredient in their recipe for success that the rest of us often forget. The integral ingredient is this: They take responsibility for their actions and the subsequent outcomes. Sometimes it’s very difficult to reach a particular goal, or to meet a deadline because someone else was blocking your path, or this part of your presentation was given to you late, or your spouse or partner set you back by spending funds you had already budgeted for something else, etc. This is where the vast majority get hung up and accept failure or, even worse, mediocrity, by shifting their energies from working around the problem to creating alibis complicit in their choice to fail.

Winners decide to work through the pain by finding alternate solutions to the problem or (for the more advanced business and personal black belts) capitalize on the situation to propel them to a successful outcome greater than their original expectations.

Choose to follow through. Choose to be prepared for possible disaster, and to be willing to handle delays or distractions. Say no to blame-shifting and choose to win despite the hurdles. If it was easy, everybody would do it. Choose to be one of the few who consistently win by first choosing to accept the responsibility when you fail. When you do this….you will have earned the right to accept the responsibility when you succeed.

Winners Give up Hope!

Or rather, give up hoping…for something to happen to them, or for them. Successful coaches, athletes, business professionals, teachers, couples and parents create their own success and the good things that happen to them. They create a plan for success and follow it. They have the guts to form a goal and commit to it. The goal could be a new house (or keeping the current one), better grades, more discretionary income, a vacation, the perfect mate or partner, a new career, job promotion, winning the big game, etc. I’ve been amazed by how many people don’t allow themselves to stand firmly for a goal or something that, in their heart of hearts, they desire. Even fewer formulate an idea about how to go get it, and still fewer yet act on their plan. The world can be your oyster (whatever that means), but oysters don’t have legs and they don’t crawl up on the shore and hop into your picnic basket. You have to get a little dirty and go down in the muck and get them. Be one of the few who give up hoping that something good happens to you. Make the decision to go out and bravely, thoughtfully, methodically, create your own good.

Winners give up complaining.

Have you ever been stuck on a plane or in line behind someone who was constantly complaining? Where even the most trivial thing was an impasse to happiness or success? Or, even worse, been in a relationship, either at work or in your personal life, with someone who thinks the glass is always less than half full? Complaining takes a lot of energy…energy that could be used to further your project, solve a problem or make someone else feel better about what they are doing. Complaining does nothing but hurt the complainer. It never solves problems….it may get a third grader out of eating spinach, but…you get the point.

Complaining is like a fast spreading strain of the H1N1 virus, with you as the epicenter! The next time you imagine a problem, or you want to complain about this or that trivial thing, go straight to the closest person you can find and pay them a compliment. Spread a different kind of virus. You’ll be amazed at how many good things start popping up in your life once you start!

Winners give up seeing problems.

Life is exactly how we choose to see it. “For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”* I like to displace the word problem with opportunity. Be able to find a lesson in any situation, challenge yourself to see past the co-worker you can’t stand, or a financial hurdle that turned up out of nowhere or the connection you just missed. Use the opportunity to turn a hostile adversary into an asset, the financial hurdle to break out of your complacency and force growth, the missed connection to expand your knowledge base through study. Or, relax,and take time for a well earned meal. You’ll be much better prepared and in the right frame of mind when your situation resolves.




*Shakespeare/Hamlet

Short Term Gratification

Take a look at the successful people you know or admire. How much time have you spent wondering what they did or what they have that you don’t? Successful people in business in relationships and in life, have learned that you sometimes have to give up your immediate wants and often have to forgo the easy, safe, decision to achieve a loftier goal. This takes patience, sacrifice and most importantly, an unfailing belief in what you are trying to accomplish. Don’t sell your true dreams short by settling for instant, and often mediocre results.

Winners Give Up!

Welcome to the very first posting on my new blog: Winners Give up!

No, no they don’t. Winners never quit.Winners never say die.Winners do whatever it takes at any cost, right?

Not necessarily. Winners, all kinds of winners, give up all manner of bad habits, bad ideas, bad attitudes….you get the idea.

This blog will explore many of those things but, more importantly, it’s about being the best possible version of you, in business and life. I hope you stick around to see if we can’t make this a winning blog….by not giving up!