American Gift Club

What is success? For different people success will mean different things. In this material world success is often equated with money one has and the kind of lifestyle one affords. Normally a person who lives in a big house or drives a fancy car or holds a good position in his office appears to be successful in the eyes of the world Success for most is achieving goals that gives them joy or pleasure. But unfortunately these achievements give short lived joy and this feeling of success is often a delusion. It is like a mirage after which the person runs and eventually forgets the very reason for which he is running.

In order to live a life of true success, it is vital that success is explained. Life has so many facets, and each of them is important to us. What will a person do with a lot of money, if he looses his peace of mind and health, gets away from his family and friend, feels in- secured, and ultimately unhappy? Of course, this can not be termed as success.

So again, what is success? Success is actually a balance of a number of factors in life that makes our life worth living. A person having a lot of wealth and creating more of it, but destroys his relationships and happiness in the process has only a unidirectional success. A person who is financially well off and enjoys good relationship, but still feels unhappy has bi-directional success, but lacks balanced success. In my opinion one can be said to have a balanced success if he/she has:

Happiness
Reasonable wealth, prosperity and security
Meaningful relationships &
Hope

Most people usually mistake things like achievements, entertainment, possessions for happiness. These things give joy but not happiness. Joy is momentary pleasure that we derive when our senses are gratified in this material world. Happiness is a permanent state of mind that is not dependent on the circumstances and situations. A person with lots of achievements, possessing all worldly possessions may still be unhappy, whereas a person who is struggling hard to make his ends meet may be happy.

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Do you know that it is within your power to be as successful as you want to be?

Where you can either join the ranks of the rich and famous, live an open celebrity life, or if you choose, you may quietly enjoy the pleasure of living a successful life with your family.

The choice of how you want to live is yours.

And the choice to decide that you want to be successful is also yours.

Many people unfortunately simply WISH that they were successful. They read about the successful people they admire and perhaps envy them or wish they were in their shoes.

And most people leave it at that, after a hearty sigh; a mere weak wish.

I know you are not that type of person, otherwise you won’t be here reading this article.

You want to get ahead in your life and live the life that you want.

Success is what you make it out to be.

It is how you personally describe success and what it means to you. It could be the type of lifestyle that you want to live, it could be that home you have always wanted, that job position or the business you always wanted to own.

Notice the difference between the life you DECIDE to live compared to the life you WISH to live.

When you decide you want to become successful, you make a commitment to achieve what it is that you want; what it is that you MUST HAVE.

And it is that dedication that will take you onto the path of achievement, and with the continued correct way of thinking, you will carry on up that road until your goal, your success, has been accomplished.

Once you make that powerful decision that you want to be successful, you immediately enter into the world of sincere commitment.

This is where you sit down and think, plan and take action.

Now notice the first step was to think.

Everything starts as a thought.

Nothing was created or invented without it first being thought of by the creator or inventor. And once thought of, that creation went through more and more thinking, more and more tweaking, and again more thinking.

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Studies show that money can buy happiness, but only until the point where you have enough to cover expenses for food, shelter, health care, and transportation. After that, more money brings diminishing returns. So, where to put your energy and resources if you want to maximize your happiness?

1. INVEST IN YOUR HEALTH – Health is a prerequisite to happiness. In other words, You can’t be happy if you’re unhealthy. Eating wisely and moving naturally are the best way to get fit

2. CREATE QUALITY FRIENDSHIPS – When it comes to a social network, quality is more important the quantity. Having two good friends who care about you – whether your chips are up or down – is more important than a huge network. We often forget that friends rarely come on their own accord: they require effort, time and nurturing.

3. EXPLORE YOUR RELIGION – World surveys show that religious people are more happy than non-religious people. Religious people are more likely to have a strong social network and to be at peace with their lives and mortality. What to do: if you have a religion, make and effort to reconnect with it. If not, visit four new religous communities in the next three months and see if any of them align with your values.

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Happiness is something that so many people strive for each day and yet many times it eludes them. Often, they feel that happiness can be theirs if only their situations were different. Have you ever felt like that?

So often we get caught up in what I call the “if only’s”. If only my husband were nicer to me. If only I had a better job. If only the children were grown and out of the house. The list can go on and on.

We can waste so much of our precious time dreaming of the “if only’s”. So many people fall into this trap and end up miserable most of their lives.

The problem is that they are looking for happiness to come to them somehow. As if it were something that could be possessed. When happiness does happen to come it seems so fleeting that it quickly passes away.

People erroneously think that happiness is just a feeling like some passing fancy. I am here to tell you that happiness is not a feeling, it can be a way of life. Happiness can be yours on a daily basis if you will only follow some basic principles.

First, you must live in the NOW. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow is not promised to us so you need to be present in the now.

Secondly, you must control your thinking and the thoughts that pass through your mind. Happiness can be called a state of mind and the way to happiness is bringing your mind into its proper state.

If I live in Texas and I want to be in California I need to change states. In order for me to be in that State I need to make some changes. In this analogy we will decide to take a train. The train must be going in the proper direction and we will arrive at our destination. We must know which train we are on, or we may end up where we don’t want to be.

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As a personal coach, one of the things I’ve noticed over the years is that people have an incredible knack for making assumptions about their lives and their goals that are just incredibly, wildly wrong.

Worse, these assumptions aren’t just incorrect, they are deflating and deadly to the success they seek.

I’ve also found that when people put these assumptions aside and get focused on the truth, they begin making progress quite quickly.

Below are the top 10 assumptions I’ve run across. Consider this a "most-wanted" list of killer assumptions you want to avoid:
1. I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT’S GOING ON

Warning! If you find yourself saying/thinking this, it’s time to stop and ask a few more questions. Invariably, the moment we think we see everything is usually when we have the smallest field of vision. Recheck your facts, get more information, and *then* proceed.
2. I HAVE A FOOLPROOF PLAN

No plan is foolproof. (At best, you might have a plan that is "fool resistant".) Consider worst-case scenarios and as many "what-ifs" as time will allow.
3. I DON’T NEED (or CAN’T GET) HELP

Few people in history have created success solely on their own. A second opinion, a spare set of hands, and a fresh
perspective seldom go amiss… And they are all much easier to find than you think. Just check your local library,
college, or telephone directory to get started.

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By KIMBERLY PIERCEALL
The Press-Enterprise

For egg producers in San Bernardino County, it was a lucky time to be doing business. For dairies, the high price of milk didn’t come without a lot of costs.

The county’s recently released crop and livestock report for 2007 revealed a rare year for the price of commodities that was worth $572 million, a nearly 31 percent increase since 2006.

John Gardner, San Bernardino County’s agricultural commissioner, said the county’s crops and livestock should still gain this year but hardly at the levels seen in 2007.

"It was a year like I’ve never seen before," said Gary Foster, general manager of Norco Ranch in Norco. The company has 1.3 million hens in San Bernardino County and another 1.7 million in Riverside County.

After two years of record losses because of over production of eggs, the industry began cutting back.

A dozen eggs were worth 49 cents in 2006.

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Could you even fathom competing in an Olympic swimming event if you had never been in a swimming pool before? Regardless of how unbelievably laughable this thought may seem, how often do we approach the world this way?

There is an old adage that advises us to "jump in the deep end and sink or swim". If we truly did this, everyone would end up drowning!

Every activity we encounter in this world has a a pattern that, if followed properly, will cause us to be successful. The harder we fight the proper pattern for success, the more time it takes to achieve the goal we have set.

Before you approach any business; any kind of activity; any leadership position; any investment; or any job, follow these principles to improve your chances of success:

Learn About It- As a business man or woman, this involves exploration and study. Additionally, it means learning from experience and from experts. How long does it take you to figure out how to play a new board game verses reading the instructions and watching a skilled player play?

Abraham Lincoln once said "If I had six hours to cut down a tree, I’d spend the first four sharpening the axe." When you do thorough research you are symbolically "sharpening the axe." This will help you to be many times more effective when it comes to doing the physical work.

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The Success Maker is housed inside people and radiates from within.  It says who they are and what they are about.  When we know how to effectively use the Success Maker it makes us stand out from the crowd.  The Success Maker creates the sparkle.  Many times before you have even spoken a word to someone you are just meeting you find yourself having formed a distinct impression of who you think this person is and what they are about.  Although you might not know the particulars about the person you are just meeting, in a few minutes, or even seconds, you have formed an impression of whether you think you like this person, and whether you think they are capable and trust worthy. Your inner sense has registered a reading emulating from that person’s inner Success Maker to you about their confidence level, their sense of assurance, their sense of enjoyment of life and their sensitivity level.

The Success Maker is the inner place where our confidence resides and where we have assurance about who we are and where we are going.  It is the place from where we deal with the little voice that is always making us aware of what we are doing and who we are.  How we conduct this inner dialog and handle the inner voice is one of the major ways we can raise the efficiency of our inner Success Maker.  Letting the inner dialogue run rampant with criticism undermining every move you make or conversation you engage in, is a sure way to slow down progress and hinder you from achieving your goals and dreams.

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How do you view failure? Do you see it as something negative
that you don’t want to be associated with or do you see it as
something positive? Most people in the world don’t like failure.

Fear of failure is the main reason why more than 80% of people
in the world are not prepared to change their circumstances.
Why do people fear failure so much? The reason for this is
because people don’t understand the dynamics involved in
success and failure.

Everything we do in life has either a right way of doing it and
a wrong way of doing it. When we do it the right way we meet with
success. Needless to say that when we do it the wrong way we are
unsuccessful. Understanding this is important because it puts
failure in its proper perspective and removes the fear around it.

When someone who doesn’t understand this dynamic meets with
temporary failure he gives up thinking that he is not good
enough or that he will never make it. But is this really what it
is? Does the fact that you didn’t make it the first time mean
that you are not good enough? Does it mean that you’ll never
make it? Not at all! All it means is YOU HAVE NOT FOUND THE
CORRECT METHOD YET!

So what do you do next?You go back and try and find out where
you went wrong.

Then you try again this time employing a different method.
When this doesn’t work you go back and look at everything you
have done so far. Talk to successful people who have made it in
this area.

Think of what you might have left out and try again. Whatever
you do, don’t give up.

Why do you need to do this? Because, "Every failure, every
adversity and every heartache, carries with it the seed of an
equivalent or a greater benefit", says author and mentor to
many great men, Napoleon Hill. Failure contains the seed of
victory and of success.

Failure teaches you what works and what doesn’t. When you study
the reasons for your failure and learn from it, you’ll find the
key to your success. The great inventor Thomas Edison knew this
truth better than anyone else. It took Edison 8000 trials to
perfect the Edison battery? Afterwards he uttered this famous
quote, "At least we know 8000 things that don’t work".

You should also be like that. Every successful person has had
to overcome temporary defeat at one time or another. Know
this! You haven’t really failed until you ACCEPT defeat. Do you
envy those who got success easily? Don’t! Success earned in
spite of earlier failure is so much sweeter than if you would
get it otherwise.

Those who earn success in this way know the road to success.
They are not afraid of losing what they have because they have
learned how to become successful. Those that easily got success
don’t know the road.

They got there so quickly that they didn’t bother to look around.
Let me use the following analogy to illustrate. Take two guys
traveling to the same destination, with this difference. The one
is going by airplane and the other by car, but the one arriving
by car had a few breakdowns along the way.

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Success is overcoming weaknesses, recognizing your strengths and helping others along their life’s pathways. Success is the achievement of something worth while, which shall make the world better and richer.

For some people success is all about money, but success is far greater than that. The wisest teacher once asked: “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” For the person to whom success is all about money, deep down he is still searching for something more, because he is lacking balance. On the other hand, for the person who seeks the Kingdom first, his success is lasting and deep rooted.

Success in a general sense is finding the unlimited power within you to manifest unlimited wealth. Do you know that you possess a gift or a talent that nobody else on this planet has? Tapping into this power is of utmost importance to achieving success.
Knowing your reason for wanting success is also important. You reason or your “WHY” is that which keeps you going, especially when the going gets tough.

Success is the knowledge you possess about your products and the required skills that you have mastered that set you apart from the rest. Success is having great achievements in your business or in life.

Success is seeking better things to express yourself more perfectly. It is having a solid foundation: It is knowing your passion and having a desire to cement it. Have you ever heard that what children learn in the first five years are the most that they will learn through lives? Think about it, a baby learns to cry, demand attention and food, crawl, walk and develop all their sensory skills. They learn from their parents and siblings and other s they get older. In these formative years the foundation is cemented and could determine what or who a child turns out to be in later years. Therefore, if you start your business of on a solid foundation with a good business plan, it is most likely to succeed than if, you just got up one day haphazardly and started a business that you had not given any thought to nor did any research on.

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