https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lJ86ULDyX8
Chapter 2:
The Three C’s and Success (Competition, Challenge and Character)
(Go to The Laws and Secrets of Success: Delving Deeper than You've Been Told Before into the Mysteries of Why Some People Accomplish More Than Others, Are Happier, Better Liked, and Yes, Wealthier: Alex Hammer: 9781492870258: Amazon.com: Books for the complete story)
Most of us avoid or dislike obstacles, but not
the most successful.
Successful people realize that it is important, to
quote from Joyce Meyer, to use the hardships
in life to “make themselves better rather than
bitter”. This mindset is a critical difference
between highly successful individuals and those
less so. Successful individuals recognize and in
fact appreciate that life can be, and often is,
difficult, but that this is not something to be
feared or criticized but embraced. Less
successful people instead make excuses and
cast blame. If only they’d gotten better breaks
or not been mistreated. A victim mentality. By
contrast, successful individuals take
responsibility for their lives and the results in it,
and do not blame other people.
Competition
Successful people are often portrayed or
considered as ruthless. As competing with
others and taking whatever they can grab in a
win-lose proposition.
You’ve heard the expressions:
“Who did you step over (or sleep with) to get to
the top?”
“It’s a dog-eat dog world”
“No good deed goes unpunished”
Despite this conventional wisdom, this is not, in
fact, how most successful think and act.
Far from it.
You may not be used to thinking this way about
successful people, so it may sound a little
surprising at first, but consider this:
Successful people realize that the real
competition is actually with oneself. Others just
serve as a mirror, and a measuring stick, for us
to allow us to see where we are at and
improve. This is part of taking responsibility for
one’s life.
And for one’s success.
Life created each of us differently. An oak tree
will never be a better maple tree than a maple
tree. It will never be a better bird than a bird.
But if it takes advantage of its surroundings to
the maximum, plays well the cards it is dealt (or
can acquire), then it can be the best oak tree
that it is capable of being.
As corny as this may sound, successful people
realize that success involves being the best
“you” that you are capable of being. That is
why successful people are not jealous or
envious of other people. Envy and jealousy are
negative emotions emanating from a feeling of
lack. We wouldn’t be jealous of others unless
we felt that they have something that we do
not. It is this inner feeling of lack that gives rise
to a corresponding poverty or other form of
lack in the world – for as within, so without. By
contrast, gratitude is an expression of fullness
and wealth. How can you be grateful unless you
are already full and have a lot to give. The same
applies to all feelings of fullness or
completeness versus feelings of lack. For
example love versus hate (or apathy). Love is a
sense of I have enough for myself, and even
extra that I can give to you. Hate by contrast, is
a feeling of lack, you took something from me I
need, or you have something that I need, etc.
Apathy is much different than contentment.
Contentment is feeling that what I have is
enough, it is all that I need. Apathy is there is
nothing of value that can be gained nor to
share, and hence I have no interest in other
people.
Why feel bad that another type of tree has
some “desired” characteristic that you do not.
Or that something comes easier to another
than it comes to you. “Variety is the spice of
life” and successful people realize that is
important to focus on what you have, and
make the most of it, rather than what you do
not. This does not mean that one cannot nor
should not work on one’s “weaknesses” as well
as one’s strengths. Certainly we should seek to
improve in all areas that are important to us.
But to waste time and worry in comparison to
others when we each are unique and on our
own individual path in life is not something
which successful people are prone to do.
Competition in the World
And yet life does have a highly competitive
element. Seen from a spiritual perspective, this
involves the notion that the lower is always
subservient to the higher. From a carnal
perspective it can be expressed, for example,
through the notion of “the survival of the
fittest”, a “will to power” or a need to
dominate.
This is real, but far different than aggression.
While the successful are often viewed as the
most aggressive, they may instead, perhaps, be
seen as the most focused or determined. They
are certainly not easily swayed away from their
goals. In addition, not only are they NOT more
aggressive, but they are in fact most able to
withstand the intrusions of others. In short,
they have a balanced mood and temperament
that is not easily displaced, even within the
highly competitive challenges of the world.
Unsuccessful people become moody, angry and
upset. They strike out at others when they do
not get their way or seek to overtly dominate
them. Successful individuals, by contrast, stay
calm and professional and withstand the
strongest blows. They possess the centeredness
and inner confidence and calm not to be easily
ruffled. This is a major component of success.
Not responding when others are asserting their
will to power against you can seem like
weakness, but many times it reflects a superior
strength in that such a successful individual is
not allowing oneself to be distracted to become
engaged by the other who is generally less
successful. Successful individuals are calm
because they are confident. They are not
overwhelmed by the will to power intrusions of
others because they recognize the reasons why
they occur as being from a source of weakness
from the other.
The most successful individuals may well be the
most competitive but they are able to do this
largely, rather than through overt competitive
actions but through, interestingly, the self-
control of avoiding the competitive acts of
others. By not becoming engaged, and thus not
wasting valuable energy and resources,
including time.
Success by ignoring others!!
(So, now you know why the very successful
never return your calls).
In all seriousness, We all prioritize our
activities, and the most successful are primarily
engaged with others who are also most
successful, who share the same or similar
characteristics as themselves.
By making oneself inaccessible and
unassailable, the successful individual is free to
focus on one’s own goals without distraction.
They also, in avoiding stress and resource
draining altercations, retain the focus and
resources to directly confront competitive
challenges that occur that they must respond
to that are more serious.
We call this picking one’s battles.
Competition Tools in Society
Those who are high on the success chain have
five extraordinarily powerful tools at their
disposal. Business resources (including,
importantly, financial resources). Legal
resources (and by extension the courts),
political and government resources (executive
and legislative (so we’ll count this as two). And
the media. Focusing on these is a book onto
itself, but suffice to say that, given these
collectively, the highly successful individual is
not overly concerned, for the most part, in
regard to competition that may arise from the
average man or woman on the street.
I will make one quick note about the media.
The fallacy (but oft repeated mantra) that the
media is the watchdog of the other four (and
especially the other three, being the three
branches of government) is perhaps the biggest
fox guarding the henhouse delusion that keeps
the whole system working well together in an
integrated and reinforcing fashion.
The general idea of checks and balances is itself
a tool of the rich and successful to present an
illusion of opportunity (if not fairness) that
many may suspect in their heart of hearts,
especially if they are the cynical kind, is instead
a reinforcement of entrenched interests of the
status quo.
Want to see it even more dramatically. Add in
these two additional forces: police and the
military.
It’s easy to see, how it can appear at times, that
it a completely stacked deck. However, before
we consider these an abuse of power, we must
also recognize that being a nation of laws
serves us all (although perhaps to varying
degrees), as does having a judicial system,
media, police, etc.
It’s simply a matter of balance and fairness in
regard to how these institutions are used. And
when they are misused, they start to erode and
lose their power, because the masses of people
will not follow them when the trust level dips
below a certain point.
Some might see such a structure as an
argument for Social Darwinism or “might makes
right”. There is a fine balance here. Power
MUST be used for one to be successful but
when it is misused this violates the essential
principles of life and backfires. Understanding
the intricacies and nuances between effective
use versus misuse, is a, if not the, critical
determining factor between success and
failure. How is this distinction effectively made?
By character, which we will be examining a bit
further below.
In short, the successful use power effectively
but are not power-hungry. We’ll examine this
more below (in short, the adaptive use of
power aids all and reflects a sense of fullness,
while the abuse of power represents a sense of
deficiency and lack and thus becomes non-
constructive or destructive, depending upon
degree).
Competition and the Marketplace of Ideas
The world is a competition of ideas. More
powerful ideas (such as a car for
transportation) tend to replace less powerful
ideas (such as horse and buggy).
Or, to date, capitalism over communism.
Almost by definition, the successful possess
better (i.e. more successful) ideas.
It has been said (and I’m paraphrasing) “that
whenever two people engage in dialogue in
good faith, the one who is more certain will
wind up influencing the one who is less
certain".
Think of the power and implications of that
principle.
The world advances so good ideas must
advance. The world is complex so ideas must be
considered not only in isolation but also as they
relate to the bigger picture. The power of
learning is that it exposes us to better ideas.
And through understanding and experience we
can incorporate those ideas into guiding
principles and wisdom.
The most successful people clearly do.
Successful ideas can be incremental or
disruptive in their advancement. Fortunes are
made from successfully implemented disruptive
ideas.
Challenge
They’ve done studies involving taking bees into
space, and the bees die. They die because there
is not enough resistance to their flying. The
bees need the resistance to survive.
Resistance is critical to human beings as well.
We need to grow – everything in life grows or
dies, that is a fundamental principle in life (my
Dad termed it, “if you’re not moving forward in
life, you’re moving backwards”).
Or, as many have heard said, “that which
doesn’t kill us makes us stronger”.
When we exercise it hurts, but it hurts in a way
that is making us stronger. Muscles need to be
used to grow. The “use it or lose it”
phenomenon.
Perhaps the challenges of life, the
disappointments and hurts, are mental
exercise.
Successful people better accept life on its
terms, and adapt to it. They take responsibility
for the actions they engage in, the thinking that
gives rise to it, and the results that emerge.
Unsuccessful people live in “woulda, coulda,
shoulda”.
It’s been famously said that “if” is the longest
word in the English language.
This is not to say that every pain is to be
embraced.
There is helpful pain and non-helpful pain. The
helpful pain is a stretching or a discomfort that
is expanding our capabilities, our minds, our
hearts, our conscience, our will, our spirits and
our souls. The non-helpful type of pain is when
we torture ourselves with the things we tell
ourselves --“I’m not good enough”, “I’m not
strong enough”, “No one will ever love me”, “I
can’t accept…” etc.
Successful people understand this critical
distinction, and make it.
Successful people are compassionate with
themselves in addition to being compassionate
with others. Self-compassion, a form of self-
love, is the basis for being compassionate with
other people.
Another Joyce Meyer concept is that human
interactions can be like sandpaper, helping to
take away our rough edges. If you are not that
compassionate in life, or if it is a trait that you
are working on, consciously or unconsciously,
you may draw people into your life who will
encourage you or literally force you (although
we do have free will) to be more
compassionate. Perhaps you will have a special
needs child, who needs more of your heart,
devotion and care than you thought that you
were capable of giving. Perhaps a trusted friend
or relative will betray you, forcing you to either
forgive or remain bitter over time.
When you start to realize that others are
serving as a mirror for you so that you can
better understand yourself and where you are
at, then, to the degree that you accept this, you
can begin to become more compassionate with
yourself and with others.
This is the basis of emotional intelligence
leading to success that we examined in the last
chapter.
Remember those bees above. That must seem
like nirvana in those first moments, to go
through life with little or no resistance, and
while it might be helpful for a short period of
time - we all surely need to relax and recharge
our batteries at times - life has its fullness and
growth from challenge.
It is, apparently, the nature of the world in
which we live.
It is human nature, even by those who are
disciplined, to sometimes (or often) seek the
path of least resistance, and embracing the
challenges of life takes real maturity. Life can
seem incredibly challenging. Will we survive?
Will we prosper? Will we continue to prosper?
It has been famously said that time is the gift of
the universe providing perspective. We’re
mortal, and we’re reminded of that with time.
There is no success, in the long run (from all we
know so far) of cheating death in this world.
This is incredibly sobering.
The losses that we suffer in life bring us closer
to that ultimate loss, that inevitable loss. Our
death. And are a reminder that can bring
richness and meaning to what we experience in
our lives if we are open to having it be as such.
Ultimately, challenge is scary because it brings
us closer to our ultimate challenge, our
mortality, the challenge that we cannot
conquer.
We distract ourselves with the challenges of
the day and as we solve these successfully we
delude ourselves that we are ultimately secure.
But cracks appear – inevitably.
Successful individuals are better at accepting
the truth of situations more fully. We all
intellectually accept that we are mortal but we,
it seems, largely put it out of our minds. Some
people say that successful people are driven by
their fears. If we are driven by fears then our
level of success must be questioned, as what is
our quality of life no matter what we have
gained if we are captive to fear?
The successful individual is at peace with
oneself and the circumstances in one’s life. He
or she has learned to come to terms with losses
large and small, understanding that challenge is
intrinsic to life, inescapable. In some way, the
successful have learned to accept the rules of
life from small loss to ultimate loss. In this way,
challenge takes on a new meaning. It is a
stretching of oneself to be better able to accept
what is, or some other framework that
generates acceptance and peace.
Challenge and the Law of Attraction
We examined in Chapter One the idea of self-
fulfilling prophesies. Angry people are
sensitized to look for angry and unjust
circumstances and find them (i.e. they help to
create them). By contrast, for example,
gratitude promotes richness and success.
How does this work in a little more detail? Well,
as I think of it, we’re all like tuning forks in
terms of what we attract and repel. Just as a
radio or TV station plays the message that
corresponds to that individual frequency or
wavelength, so experiences manifest
corresponding to the energy in our hearts,
minds and souls. Have you ever felt that
someone was drawn to you, or you to them, or
repulsed?
The outer is a manifestation of the inner, like a
mirror. Our experiences reflect to us how we
feel about ourselves (and correspondingly
about others). “Fruits of the spirit”, including
love, acceptance, joy, compassion, gratitude,
etc. REFLECT A STRONG SENSE OF INNER
COMPLETENESS, SATISFACTION AND
RICHNESS, TRUE WEALTH, etc. that become
manifested in the world in the forms of money,
harmonious relationships, health, etc.
THIS IS THE SECRET OF THE BOOK BY THE
SAME NAME, AND MAY BE, AS FAR AS I
KNOW, ONE OF THE POTENTIALLY
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE.
Life, and life experiences, are showing you what
you already hold or believe yourself to be.
Or, as has been said, “wherever you go, there
you are”.
Feelings have a stronger vibrational energy
than do thoughts, so how you feel about
something is a stronger predictor of the law of
attraction than what you think about it. If you
feel happy, content, grateful, joyful, etc. then
the law of attraction is working to your benefit.
If you wish for good things but your emotions
are out of whack then at best you are sending
mixed messages and again feelings are more
powerful. Powerful and successful feeling leads
to powerful and successful thinking, and you
can work on your thinking in addition to your
feelings for beneficial effect.
Successful people know, and utilize, that to see
success in the world, it starts first inside.
Character
Biology should never have been characterized
as destiny. But character may well be.
I like to say that “talent can take one to the top,
but only character keeps one there”. This is
because those who rise without character may
reach the top but are much more likely to fall,
quickly or after a period of time, than those
who do.
It’s a similar principle to lottery winners who do
not have a wealth mentality despite winning
great wealth. If the lottery winner can develop
a wealth mindset then they should be able to
keep, maintain and even build upon their
winnings. However, if they can’t, then they’re
simply a poor person who temporarily happens
to have a lot of money. That is, they have
retained the mentality of a poor person, they
think like a poor person, and as detailed earlier
as per the law of attraction, this inner feeling
and belief of poverty must manifest in the
lottery winner again becoming poor.
People with a poor person’s mentality at some
level don’t feel entirely comfortable being rich.
Perhaps they feel guilty. Perhaps they do not
appreciate the money as one might if acquired
in a different way (e.g. by years of labor and
sacrifice).
Back to character. I define love as wanting to
help those who can do nothing for you, and
character as has been famously said, as “doing
the right thing even when no one is watching”.
It’s human nature that we want to lie in bed
and do nothing (and still become rich). We
want (at least at times) to be petty with others
and be selfish. Character teaches us we can’t be
lazy. Character teaches us we can’t be mean.
Not if we wish to have a successful life.
We have to have the discipline to work hard
Even when we don’t feel like it. We have to
move beyond our personal feelings and look at
the bigger picture in terms of our words and
moods.
Character is destiny.
In a later chapter we’ll be discussing success as
determined by the strength of your network.
Do you think that successful individuals want to
hang out with you or be part of your network if
you have bad character?
Let’s put it this way. You know how hard you’ve
worked to get to where you are. Do you want
someone irresponsible, careless or carefree
dragging you down?
I defined character as doing the right thing even
when no one is looking. Many people appear to
do the right thing when others are watching,
for personal gain. Character runs a lot deeper
than that. It is an internalization of beliefs, and
attitude and drive that keep one on true north.
Character is destiny. Ask the successful people
you know.
Conclusion
Competition is real but largely a competition
with ourselves to be the best we can be.
Successful people realize that as we compete in
the world we are learning about ourselves and
the notions that we hold. Successful individuals
make effective use and take benefit from
utilizing powerful institutions but do so in a
balanced way to avoid negative consequences.
Life is a battle of ideas, both incremental and
disruptive.
Successful individuals realize that as we compete in
the world we are learning about ourselves and
the notions that we hold. Successful individuals
make effective use and take benefit from
utilizing powerful institutions but do so in a
balanced way to avoid negative consequences.
Life is a battle of ideas, both incremental and
disruptive.
Successful individuals realize that challenge
exists to make us “better rather than bitter”,
and thus is to be embraced rather than feared.
Sometimes life uses others to help smooth
away our rough edges or improve us in some
other way. The law of attraction is a powerful
force and translates our inner feelings and
beliefs into experiences in the world. This is the
great and powerful secret.
Character, perhaps more than anything else, is
destiny. The successful may rise through talent,
but require character as a necessity to maintain
and expand upon their success.
(This has been a single chapter excerpt from The Laws and Secrets of Success: Delving Deeper than You've Been Told Before into the Mysteries of Why Some People Accomplish More Than Others, Are Happier, Better Liked, and Yes, Wealthier: Alex Hammer: 9781492870258: Amazon.com: Books)
Most of us avoid or dislike obstacles, but not
the most successful.
Successful people realize that it is important, to
quote from Joyce Meyer, to use the hardships
in life to “make themselves better rather than
bitter”. This mindset is a critical difference
between highly successful individuals and those
less so. Successful individuals recognize and in
fact appreciate that life can be, and often is,
difficult, but that this is not something to be
feared or criticized but embraced. Less
successful people instead make excuses and
cast blame. If only they’d gotten better breaks
or not been mistreated. A victim mentality. By
contrast, successful individuals take
responsibility for their lives and the results in it,
and do not blame other people.
Competition
Successful people are often portrayed or
considered as ruthless. As competing with
others and taking whatever they can grab in a
win-lose proposition.
You’ve heard the expressions:
“Who did you step over (or sleep with) to get to
the top?”
“It’s a dog-eat dog world”
“No good deed goes unpunished”
Despite this conventional wisdom, this is not, in
fact, how most successful think and act.
Far from it.
You may not be used to thinking this way about
successful people, so it may sound a little
surprising at first, but consider this:
Successful people realize that the real
competition is actually with oneself. Others just
serve as a mirror, and a measuring stick, for us
to allow us to see where we are at and
improve. This is part of taking responsibility for
one’s life.
And for one’s success.
Life created each of us differently. An oak tree
will never be a better maple tree than a maple
tree. It will never be a better bird than a bird.
But if it takes advantage of its surroundings to
the maximum, plays well the cards it is dealt (or
can acquire), then it can be the best oak tree
that it is capable of being.
As corny as this may sound, successful people
realize that success involves being the best
“you” that you are capable of being. That is
why successful people are not jealous or
envious of other people. Envy and jealousy are
negative emotions emanating from a feeling of
lack. We wouldn’t be jealous of others unless
we felt that they have something that we do
not. It is this inner feeling of lack that gives rise
to a corresponding poverty or other form of
lack in the world – for as within, so without. By
contrast, gratitude is an expression of fullness
and wealth. How can you be grateful unless you
are already full and have a lot to give. The same
applies to all feelings of fullness or
completeness versus feelings of lack. For
example love versus hate (or apathy). Love is a
sense of I have enough for myself, and even
extra that I can give to you. Hate by contrast, is
a feeling of lack, you took something from me I
need, or you have something that I need, etc.
Apathy is much different than contentment.
Contentment is feeling that what I have is
enough, it is all that I need. Apathy is there is
nothing of value that can be gained nor to
share, and hence I have no interest in other
people.
Why feel bad that another type of tree has
some “desired” characteristic that you do not.
Or that something comes easier to another
than it comes to you. “Variety is the spice of
life” and successful people realize that is
important to focus on what you have, and
make the most of it, rather than what you do
not. This does not mean that one cannot nor
should not work on one’s “weaknesses” as well
as one’s strengths. Certainly we should seek to
improve in all areas that are important to us.
But to waste time and worry in comparison to
others when we each are unique and on our
own individual path in life is not something
which successful people are prone to do.
Competition in the World
And yet life does have a highly competitive
element. Seen from a spiritual perspective, this
involves the notion that the lower is always
subservient to the higher. From a carnal
perspective it can be expressed, for example,
through the notion of “the survival of the
fittest”, a “will to power” or a need to
dominate.
This is real, but far different than aggression.
While the successful are often viewed as the
most aggressive, they may instead, perhaps, be
seen as the most focused or determined. They
are certainly not easily swayed away from their
goals. In addition, not only are they NOT more
aggressive, but they are in fact most able to
withstand the intrusions of others. In short,
they have a balanced mood and temperament
that is not easily displaced, even within the
highly competitive challenges of the world.
Unsuccessful people become moody, angry and
upset. They strike out at others when they do
not get their way or seek to overtly dominate
them. Successful individuals, by contrast, stay
calm and professional and withstand the
strongest blows. They possess the centeredness
and inner confidence and calm not to be easily
ruffled. This is a major component of success.
Not responding when others are asserting their
will to power against you can seem like
weakness, but many times it reflects a superior
strength in that such a successful individual is
not allowing oneself to be distracted to become
engaged by the other who is generally less
successful. Successful individuals are calm
because they are confident. They are not
overwhelmed by the will to power intrusions of
others because they recognize the reasons why
they occur as being from a source of weakness
from the other.
The most successful individuals may well be the
most competitive but they are able to do this
largely, rather than through overt competitive
actions but through, interestingly, the self-
control of avoiding the competitive acts of
others. By not becoming engaged, and thus not
wasting valuable energy and resources,
including time.
Success by ignoring others!!
(So, now you know why the very successful
never return your calls).
In all seriousness, We all prioritize our
activities, and the most successful are primarily
engaged with others who are also most
successful, who share the same or similar
characteristics as themselves.
By making oneself inaccessible and
unassailable, the successful individual is free to
focus on one’s own goals without distraction.
They also, in avoiding stress and resource
draining altercations, retain the focus and
resources to directly confront competitive
challenges that occur that they must respond
to that are more serious.
We call this picking one’s battles.
Competition Tools in Society
Those who are high on the success chain have
five extraordinarily powerful tools at their
disposal. Business resources (including,
importantly, financial resources). Legal
resources (and by extension the courts),
political and government resources (executive
and legislative (so we’ll count this as two). And
the media. Focusing on these is a book onto
itself, but suffice to say that, given these
collectively, the highly successful individual is
not overly concerned, for the most part, in
regard to competition that may arise from the
average man or woman on the street.
I will make one quick note about the media.
The fallacy (but oft repeated mantra) that the
media is the watchdog of the other four (and
especially the other three, being the three
branches of government) is perhaps the biggest
fox guarding the henhouse delusion that keeps
the whole system working well together in an
integrated and reinforcing fashion.
The general idea of checks and balances is itself
a tool of the rich and successful to present an
illusion of opportunity (if not fairness) that
many may suspect in their heart of hearts,
especially if they are the cynical kind, is instead
a reinforcement of entrenched interests of the
status quo.
Want to see it even more dramatically. Add in
these two additional forces: police and the
military.
It’s easy to see, how it can appear at times, that
it a completely stacked deck. However, before
we consider these an abuse of power, we must
also recognize that being a nation of laws
serves us all (although perhaps to varying
degrees), as does having a judicial system,
media, police, etc.
It’s simply a matter of balance and fairness in
regard to how these institutions are used. And
when they are misused, they start to erode and
lose their power, because the masses of people
will not follow them when the trust level dips
below a certain point.
Some might see such a structure as an
argument for Social Darwinism or “might makes
right”. There is a fine balance here. Power
MUST be used for one to be successful but
when it is misused this violates the essential
principles of life and backfires. Understanding
the intricacies and nuances between effective
use versus misuse, is a, if not the, critical
determining factor between success and
failure. How is this distinction effectively made?
By character, which we will be examining a bit
further below.
In short, the successful use power effectively
but are not power-hungry. We’ll examine this
more below (in short, the adaptive use of
power aids all and reflects a sense of fullness,
while the abuse of power represents a sense of
deficiency and lack and thus becomes non-
constructive or destructive, depending upon
degree).
Competition and the Marketplace of Ideas
The world is a competition of ideas. More
powerful ideas (such as a car for
transportation) tend to replace less powerful
ideas (such as horse and buggy).
Or, to date, capitalism over communism.
Almost by definition, the successful possess
better (i.e. more successful) ideas.
It has been said (and I’m paraphrasing) “that
whenever two people engage in dialogue in
good faith, the one who is more certain will
wind up influencing the one who is less
certain".
Think of the power and implications of that
principle.
The world advances so good ideas must
advance. The world is complex so ideas must be
considered not only in isolation but also as they
relate to the bigger picture. The power of
learning is that it exposes us to better ideas.
And through understanding and experience we
can incorporate those ideas into guiding
principles and wisdom.
The most successful people clearly do.
Successful ideas can be incremental or
disruptive in their advancement. Fortunes are
made from successfully implemented disruptive
ideas.
Challenge
They’ve done studies involving taking bees into
space, and the bees die. They die because there
is not enough resistance to their flying. The
bees need the resistance to survive.
Resistance is critical to human beings as well.
We need to grow – everything in life grows or
dies, that is a fundamental principle in life (my
Dad termed it, “if you’re not moving forward in
life, you’re moving backwards”).
Or, as many have heard said, “that which
doesn’t kill us makes us stronger”.
When we exercise it hurts, but it hurts in a way
that is making us stronger. Muscles need to be
used to grow. The “use it or lose it”
phenomenon.
Perhaps the challenges of life, the
disappointments and hurts, are mental
exercise.
Successful people better accept life on its
terms, and adapt to it. They take responsibility
for the actions they engage in, the thinking that
gives rise to it, and the results that emerge.
Unsuccessful people live in “woulda, coulda,
shoulda”.
It’s been famously said that “if” is the longest
word in the English language.
This is not to say that every pain is to be
embraced.
There is helpful pain and non-helpful pain. The
helpful pain is a stretching or a discomfort that
is expanding our capabilities, our minds, our
hearts, our conscience, our will, our spirits and
our souls. The non-helpful type of pain is when
we torture ourselves with the things we tell
ourselves --“I’m not good enough”, “I’m not
strong enough”, “No one will ever love me”, “I
can’t accept…” etc.
Successful people understand this critical
distinction, and make it.
Successful people are compassionate with
themselves in addition to being compassionate
with others. Self-compassion, a form of self-
love, is the basis for being compassionate with
other people.
Another Joyce Meyer concept is that human
interactions can be like sandpaper, helping to
take away our rough edges. If you are not that
compassionate in life, or if it is a trait that you
are working on, consciously or unconsciously,
you may draw people into your life who will
encourage you or literally force you (although
we do have free will) to be more
compassionate. Perhaps you will have a special
needs child, who needs more of your heart,
devotion and care than you thought that you
were capable of giving. Perhaps a trusted friend
or relative will betray you, forcing you to either
forgive or remain bitter over time.
When you start to realize that others are
serving as a mirror for you so that you can
better understand yourself and where you are
at, then, to the degree that you accept this, you
can begin to become more compassionate with
yourself and with others.
This is the basis of emotional intelligence
leading to success that we examined in the last
chapter.
Remember those bees above. That must seem
like nirvana in those first moments, to go
through life with little or no resistance, and
while it might be helpful for a short period of
time - we all surely need to relax and recharge
our batteries at times - life has its fullness and
growth from challenge.
It is, apparently, the nature of the world in
which we live.
It is human nature, even by those who are
disciplined, to sometimes (or often) seek the
path of least resistance, and embracing the
challenges of life takes real maturity. Life can
seem incredibly challenging. Will we survive?
Will we prosper? Will we continue to prosper?
It has been famously said that time is the gift of
the universe providing perspective. We’re
mortal, and we’re reminded of that with time.
There is no success, in the long run (from all we
know so far) of cheating death in this world.
This is incredibly sobering.
The losses that we suffer in life bring us closer
to that ultimate loss, that inevitable loss. Our
death. And are a reminder that can bring
richness and meaning to what we experience in
our lives if we are open to having it be as such.
Ultimately, challenge is scary because it brings
us closer to our ultimate challenge, our
mortality, the challenge that we cannot
conquer.
We distract ourselves with the challenges of
the day and as we solve these successfully we
delude ourselves that we are ultimately secure.
But cracks appear – inevitably.
Successful individuals are better at accepting
the truth of situations more fully. We all
intellectually accept that we are mortal but we,
it seems, largely put it out of our minds. Some
people say that successful people are driven by
their fears. If we are driven by fears then our
level of success must be questioned, as what is
our quality of life no matter what we have
gained if we are captive to fear?
The successful individual is at peace with
oneself and the circumstances in one’s life. He
or she has learned to come to terms with losses
large and small, understanding that challenge is
intrinsic to life, inescapable. In some way, the
successful have learned to accept the rules of
life from small loss to ultimate loss. In this way,
challenge takes on a new meaning. It is a
stretching of oneself to be better able to accept
what is, or some other framework that
generates acceptance and peace.
Challenge and the Law of Attraction
We examined in Chapter One the idea of self-
fulfilling prophesies. Angry people are
sensitized to look for angry and unjust
circumstances and find them (i.e. they help to
create them). By contrast, for example,
gratitude promotes richness and success.
How does this work in a little more detail? Well,
as I think of it, we’re all like tuning forks in
terms of what we attract and repel. Just as a
radio or TV station plays the message that
corresponds to that individual frequency or
wavelength, so experiences manifest
corresponding to the energy in our hearts,
minds and souls. Have you ever felt that
someone was drawn to you, or you to them, or
repulsed?
The outer is a manifestation of the inner, like a
mirror. Our experiences reflect to us how we
feel about ourselves (and correspondingly
about others). “Fruits of the spirit”, including
love, acceptance, joy, compassion, gratitude,
etc. REFLECT A STRONG SENSE OF INNER
COMPLETENESS, SATISFACTION AND
RICHNESS, TRUE WEALTH, etc. that become
manifested in the world in the forms of money,
harmonious relationships, health, etc.
THIS IS THE SECRET OF THE BOOK BY THE
SAME NAME, AND MAY BE, AS FAR AS I
KNOW, ONE OF THE POTENTIALLY
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE UNIVERSE.
Life, and life experiences, are showing you what
you already hold or believe yourself to be.
Or, as has been said, “wherever you go, there
you are”.
Feelings have a stronger vibrational energy
than do thoughts, so how you feel about
something is a stronger predictor of the law of
attraction than what you think about it. If you
feel happy, content, grateful, joyful, etc. then
the law of attraction is working to your benefit.
If you wish for good things but your emotions
are out of whack then at best you are sending
mixed messages and again feelings are more
powerful. Powerful and successful feeling leads
to powerful and successful thinking, and you
can work on your thinking in addition to your
feelings for beneficial effect.
Successful people know, and utilize, that to see
success in the world, it starts first inside.
Character
Biology should never have been characterized
as destiny. But character may well be.
I like to say that “talent can take one to the top,
but only character keeps one there”. This is
because those who rise without character may
reach the top but are much more likely to fall,
quickly or after a period of time, than those
who do.
It’s a similar principle to lottery winners who do
not have a wealth mentality despite winning
great wealth. If the lottery winner can develop
a wealth mindset then they should be able to
keep, maintain and even build upon their
winnings. However, if they can’t, then they’re
simply a poor person who temporarily happens
to have a lot of money. That is, they have
retained the mentality of a poor person, they
think like a poor person, and as detailed earlier
as per the law of attraction, this inner feeling
and belief of poverty must manifest in the
lottery winner again becoming poor.
People with a poor person’s mentality at some
level don’t feel entirely comfortable being rich.
Perhaps they feel guilty. Perhaps they do not
appreciate the money as one might if acquired
in a different way (e.g. by years of labor and
sacrifice).
Back to character. I define love as wanting to
help those who can do nothing for you, and
character as has been famously said, as “doing
the right thing even when no one is watching”.
It’s human nature that we want to lie in bed
and do nothing (and still become rich). We
want (at least at times) to be petty with others
and be selfish. Character teaches us we can’t be
lazy. Character teaches us we can’t be mean.
Not if we wish to have a successful life.
We have to have the discipline to work hard
Even when we don’t feel like it. We have to
move beyond our personal feelings and look at
the bigger picture in terms of our words and
moods.
Character is destiny.
In a later chapter we’ll be discussing success as
determined by the strength of your network.
Do you think that successful individuals want to
hang out with you or be part of your network if
you have bad character?
Let’s put it this way. You know how hard you’ve
worked to get to where you are. Do you want
someone irresponsible, careless or carefree
dragging you down?
I defined character as doing the right thing even
when no one is looking. Many people appear to
do the right thing when others are watching,
for personal gain. Character runs a lot deeper
than that. It is an internalization of beliefs, and
attitude and drive that keep one on true north.
Character is destiny. Ask the successful people
you know.
Conclusion
Competition is real but largely a competition
with ourselves to be the best we can be.
Successful people realize that as we compete in
the world we are learning about ourselves and
the notions that we hold. Successful individuals
make effective use and take benefit from
utilizing powerful institutions but do so in a
balanced way to avoid negative consequences.
Life is a battle of ideas, both incremental and
disruptive.
Successful individuals realize that as we compete in
the world we are learning about ourselves and
the notions that we hold. Successful individuals
make effective use and take benefit from
utilizing powerful institutions but do so in a
balanced way to avoid negative consequences.
Life is a battle of ideas, both incremental and
disruptive.
Successful individuals realize that challenge
exists to make us “better rather than bitter”,
and thus is to be embraced rather than feared.
Sometimes life uses others to help smooth
away our rough edges or improve us in some
other way. The law of attraction is a powerful
force and translates our inner feelings and
beliefs into experiences in the world. This is the
great and powerful secret.
Character, perhaps more than anything else, is
destiny. The successful may rise through talent,
but require character as a necessity to maintain
and expand upon their success.
(This has been a single chapter excerpt from The Laws and Secrets of Success: Delving Deeper than You've Been Told Before into the Mysteries of Why Some People Accomplish More Than Others, Are Happier, Better Liked, and Yes, Wealthier: Alex Hammer: 9781492870258: Amazon.com: Books)
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