Why Yoda Was Wrong
“Do or do not. There is no try.” Yoda
I know I will get lynched for saying this but Yoda was wrong. Now I know must business and personal development books quote Yoda but the wise old puppet was wrong. There is a lot of try before you do. In order to do anything well you have to try a lot. Trying is what gives you the strength to eventually do a good job. So sorry Yodites, your wise master was not so wise after all. Still, they are great movies and I am a huge Star Wars fan.
Just to get me off the hook from the Yodites let me say that I know that Yoda was implying that it is in the doing that we accomplish anything and I agree with him there. We must seek to get to the doing stage. That is not to negate the trying and practicing. That is really important as you implement change in your life and especially in your thinking patterns. To get rid of stinkin thinkin and switch to a success orientation it does require time and effort until it becomes part of your psyche and thinking that way is natural to you. So don’t get disappointed if you find it difficult at first and you feel like you will never get rid of toxic thinking that is holding you back. Rome wasn’t built in a day and changing your life and your mind patterns takes time too. I hope it doesn’t take as long as it took to build Rome and I am sure you don’t either. Your determination to change and succeed will speed up the learning process for you.
Do my Yoda friends forgive me? Thank you. I knew you would understand what I was getting at. I don’t want us to have any kind of thinking that holds us back or makes us discouraged. I am only interested in thought patterns that foster growth and development, as that will speed the success process. Don’t try and fool yourself into thinking there will never be failures or bumps in the road. Of course there will be you will keep pushing forward and go around those as you move forward with your learning process and adapt better ways of thinking. We must always press forward. Can you imagine that gave up fighting a war because they lost a battle? Unless they see no hope of winning the war armies will always dust themselves off after losing a skirmish and live to fight another day. That is why I encourage all of us to keep trying until we succeed. That great day of achievement when you can finally DO the thing you’ve been aiming for will be a great day for you.
Remember how your children felt when they started to swim or climb a rope? They may not have been able to do it at their first attempt but you kept encouraging them to try, try, try, and eventually they were able to do it. You were excited, they were excited, and you moved on to the next challenge in their lives. Now the exception is video games and me. I have played lots of video games with my sons and never gotten past the first level so I know there is no hope for me in that area so I need to quit trying to achieve glory and move on the second level and just accept the fact that for the rest of my life I will always be a one level video game player. It is humbling but I have to accept my limitations. Nothing wrong with that, as long as I face reality like a man.
Now that my humble session is over we can get back to work. Have the mind of a child when it comes to new challenges. If the child has encouragement from loving parents he or she believes they can do anything. I fondly remember throwing my sons up to the ceiling one by one. They missed the top by a few inches but it still scared them and exhilarated them at the same time. Because they had trust in me that I would not drop them or let them be harmed they were willing to take risks and try, whether it was learning to swim, ride a bike, get thrown in the air or numerous other wonderful experiences I have had with my three great son. I have always wanted them to try anything they wanted to try, (except drugs and crime of course.)
I believe they have grown up to be exceptional men because of the way their mother and I raised them and I am very proud of them. Can you imagine if I had told them to quit after the first few times they tried anything and it did not work out? Neither can I. The fun of learning is in the trying and in the trying is where we all learn character. So stop beating yourself over the head if you have not succeeded at your first attempts. Instead take the learning experiences and apply them to your future attempts. That is how we all learn and grow. To be a successful millionaire discouragement has to leave your mindset and your vocabulary. I am not saying to pretend that everything is sunshine and roses but just to keep an optimistic outlook on your future and your potential for success.
Let me say thank you to Yoda for all the wisdom he has given us and thank you also to all the other great teachers down through history who have shown us that the little guy can make it. Thank you Kermit, thank you Danny De Vito and thank you Napoleon. There is hope for all of us if we stop looking at other people’s size and instead look inside ourselves and see what we are made of and what we have the potential for. Keep trying. Keep moving forward. Know when to quit and try something else but until then don’t be embarrassed to try and try again. Without the trying there will never be the doing.
If at first you don’t succeed, you are running about average. I am not sure who first came up with that quote but it is a great one. We all fail from time to time. We all scrape our knees, scuff our shoes or bang our heads. Failure is not the issue. Giving up is the problem. Successful millionaires know how to persevere and hang in there. It is those who have commitment and perseverance who will eventually share in the spoils. Now, like I mentioned earlier, you have to know when something isn’t working and quit it to move onto something else but if you believe passionately in what you are doing and you know there is a market out there for it then you must persist. Don’t allow discouragement to rob you of success and reaching your goals.
None of us want to utter the words, “IF ONLY.” Don’t allow yourself to give up on a passion because of setbacks. Successful millionaires started out as unsuccessful millionaire wannabes. It is through trial and error that success comes. Think back to your schooldays when you had a crush on another student. You were never going to get a date if you didn’t ask for one or take the first step and talk to them. The first step is always the hardest but like I said earlier there would be no second step if you don’t take the first one so understand how important persistence is and apply it to your own business and life. Do you want to write a book? Start by writing. Write down random thoughts, ideas, and quotes, whatever, just write. Don’t allow discouragement to rob you of creativity. ALL writers want to give up. ALL writers want to quit and ALL writers think their writing sucks from time to time. Even Hemingway said his first drafts always sucked although he said it in a much more flowery way.
“The road to someday ends up in the town of nowhere” Tony Robbins
I love this quote from Tony because I could not have said it better myself. Putting things off instead of persisting is a death knell to your goals and ambitions. How many articles do you read about people giving up? Not many I assume but you see a lot of articles about people who had passion and perseverance and held on till the end when their goals were finally accomplished. Those are the people that inspire us on to greatness. They are the ones who will look up to.
About five percent of the population buy a book or e-book at least once a year. Tragically the vast majority of those never actually finish the book, especially in the non-fiction arena. People buy books on dieting, wealth accumulation, relationships, health, and business probably with good motives and intentions but once the book starts talking about what YOU have to do to achieve your goals that is where a lot of people stop reading or listening to the audio programs. The reason so many diets come out every year is because of demand. People are always looking for a quick and easy way to lose weight that does not involve changing your eating habits or exercising. We are all looking for a diet that says take this pill and the pounds will fall off. Unfortunately nothing too successful has come down the pike yet. The same with personal development books or business books. Most of us want to know three steps to get from abject poverty to multi-millionaire status without changing our lifestyle or doing hard work. We want someone to say buy these three stocks or buy that house or read this book and you will be a millionaire. Unfortunately none of those work either. Unless you win the lottery, steal it or inherit it, making money requires work.
The vast majority of people in America, and around the world, work for someone else. You make someone else rich instead of yourself. Successful millionaire thinking says what can I do to make myself rich instead of someone else? Most people ask WHY but successful millionaires ask WHY NOT ME? The attitude is very different and therefore the results will be very different. Once successful people are on the road to fulfilling their passion their persistence will carry them forward over obstacles and around mountains until they achieve the end result. If you are the kind of person that gives up easily now is a good time to change that by changing your mindset to one of perseverance. I know it is not easy but you can do it. Like everything in life it takes practice and a determination to succeed. Of course if you have no desire to succeed or advance yourself then none of this will apply to you anyway.
If you are working for someone else do some research online or at your library about starting a home business or an Internet business. You can have a website up and running in about an hour for less than $10.00 if you use GoDaddy.com. Others like Yahoo and similar sites also offer low-cost websites. Check them out and see how affordable they are. Many people stop themselves from starting a business due to misunderstanding of costs and expenses. They assume it costs hundreds or thousands of dollars to create and host a website. In this modern world everyone can be online with a good-looking site that contains photos, videos, articles, and sales pitches. Remember though that the key to a good website is content and how it benefits the customer. You must always offer good free content to bring your customers back. Special offers, coupons and discounts are always very attractive and help bring in new customers as well as returning ones. Again you must have passion for this and persist. Stick with it. Eventually it will pay off if you have a good product or service to offer the public.
If you buy an iMac computer and a $200.00 video camera you can create videos in iMovie or some other software and upload them to your site or upload them to YouTube and then embed them on your website. That way YouTube is the host of the video and you don’t use up a ton of space on your site.
The opportunities are unlimited to the curious entrepreneur. Are you one of those? I have a suspicion that you are. I think you are one of the few that really has the tenacity to succeed and to stick with it until that happens. There will be bumps and some knocks ahead but like a marathon runner focus on the finish and you will get through the heavy chest, tired legs and arms, and desire to drop out. I’m sure that every marathon runner has at least one thought during the race about dropping out but they wipe that thought from their mind and focus instead on the joy of accomplishing their task of finishing the race. It takes a lot of preparation and hard work to run a marathon race. It also takes a lot of preparation and hard work to be a successful millionaire but the freedom is worth it.
The greatest reward to being a successful millionaire is the freedom that it brings. The freedom to enjoy life and spend more time with your family, take vacations, enjoy nice things, share with the needy, support worthwhile projects, and have peace of mind about your financial situation. Of course successful millionaires also love their work because they are creative and creative people are always working on the next project or idea. That is the millionaire thinking process. So start trying today until you learn to do.
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