Success

Success can make you go one of two ways.  It can make you a prima donna, or it can smooth the edges, take away the insecurities, let the nice things come out.

~Barbara Walters

Success and Achievement

Success and achievement are more important than one's financial statement. Life's measurement is not only quantitative but qualitative.

~Bill Byrne

Listen To Your Own Heart

You must listen to your own heart.  You can't be successful if you aren't happy with what you are doing.

~Curtis Carlson

Who Do You Invite In?

A woman came out of her house and saw three old men with long white beards sitting in her front yard. She did not recognize them. She said, "I don't think I know you, but you must be hungry. Please come in and have something to eat."  
 
"Is the man of the house home?" they asked. "No," she said, "he's out." 

"Then we cannot come in," they replied. 
 
In the evening when her husband came home, she told him what had happened and he said
"Go tell them I am home and invite them in!" So the woman went out and invited the men in.

"We do not go into a house together," they replied. "Why is that?" she wanted to know. One of the old men explained, "His name is Wealth," said pointing to one of his friends, and said, pointing to another one, "He is Success, and I am Love." Then he added, "Now go in and discuss with your husband which one of us you want in your home."  
 
The woman went in and told her husband what was said. Her husband was overjoyed.   "How nice!" he said. "since that is the case, let us invite Wealth. Let him come in and fill our home with wealth!"   

His wife disagreed. "My dear, why don't we invite Success?"   

Their daughter-in-law was listening from another corner of the house. She jumped in with her own suggestion: "Would it not be better to invite Love? Our home will then be filled with love!"    

"Let us heed our daughter-in-law's advice," said the husband to his wife. "Go out and invite Love to be our guest."    

The woman went out and asked the three old men, "Which one of you is Love? Please come in and be our guest."   

Love got up and started walking toward the house. The other two also got up and followed him. Surprised, the woman asked Wealth and Success: "I only invited Love, why are you coming in?"   

The old men replied together: " If you had invited Wealth or Success,   the other two of us would have stayed out, but since you invited Love, wherever he goes, we go with him. Wherever there is Love, there is Wealth and Success!!!"

The lesson is simple... who are you inviting into your life? 

Rules for Business Success

Face reality as it is...not as it was, or as you wish it to be.
Be candid with everyone.
Don't manage, lead.
Change before you have to.
If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete.
Control your own destiny or someone else will.

~Jack Welch

Success

Success isn't permanant and failure isn't fatal.

~Mike Ditka

Secret of Success

The secret of success is to be like a duck; smooth and unruffled on the surface and paddling furiously beneath.

~Author unknown but greatly appreciated

More "Overnight" Success Stories

Dr. Seuss's first children's book was rejected by twenty-three publishers.  The twenty-fourth publisher sold siz million copies.

After having been rejected by both Hewlett-Packard and Atari, Apple Computers had first year sales of $2.5 million - a huge amount at that time.

Vince Lombardi didn't become a head coach in the NFL until he was forty Seven.

During their first year in business, the Coca-cola company sold only 400 Cokes.

In his first 3 years in the automobile business, Henry Ford went bankrupt twice.

Inventor Chester Carlson pounded the pavement and knocked on doors for years before he could find backers for his Xerox Photocopying Machine.

In 1902, the poetry editor of the Atlantic Monthly returned the poems of a twenty-eight year old poet with the following note: "Our magazine has no room for your vigorous verse." But Robert Frost persevered and became one of our nations most beloved poets.

Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.

The lesson is to remember that we need to "keep on keeping on" to be successful.  We only fail when we give up.

Rejection and Success

Richard Hooker spent 17 years writing a humorous war story.  Twenty-one publishers rejected it before William Morrow finally bought it. You may have seen Mr. Hooker's work, either when you grew up, or on TV Land in re-runs, it's a show called M.A.S.H.

Eighteen publishers turned down Richard Bach.  He finally persueded MacMillian to publish just 7,500 copies of his book. Today, millions of copies have been sold and his book is considered a spirituality classic; you've probably heard of Jonathon Livingston Seagull.

The lesson to remember is that between them, these authors faced 39 rejections but they didn't give up.  Persistance pays off.