by Jim Rohn

An enterprising person is one who comes across a pile of scrap metal and sees the making of a wonderful sculpture. An enterprising person is one who drives through an old decrepit part of town and sees a new housing development. An enterprising person is one who sees opportunity in all areas of life.

To be enterprising is to keep your eyes open and your mind active. It’s to be skilled enough, confident enough, creative enough and disciplined enough to seize opportunities that present themselves… regardless of the economy.

A person with an enterprising attitude says, “Find out what you can before action is taken.” Do your homework. Do the research. Be prepared. Be resourceful. Do all you can in preparation of what’s to come.

Enterprising people always see the future in the present. Enterprising people always find a way to take advantage of a situation, not be burdened by it. And enterprising people aren’t lazy. They don’t wait for opportunities to come to them; they go after the opportunities. Enterprise means always finding a way to keep yourself actively working toward your ambition.

Enterprise is two things. The first is creativity. You need creativity to see what’s out there and to shape it to your advantage. You need creativity to look at the world a little differently. You need creativity to take a different approach, to be different.

What goes hand in hand with the creativity of enterprise is the second requirement: the courage to be creative. You need courage to see things differently, courage to go against the crowd, courage to take a different approach, courage to stand alone if you have to, courage to choose activity over inactivity.

And lastly, being enterprising doesn’t just relate to the ability to make money. Being enterprising also means feeling good enough about yourself, having enough self-worth to want to seek advantages and opportunities that will make a difference in your future. And by doing so, you will increase your confidence, your courage, your creativity and your self-worth—your enterprising nature.

The first half of 2010 is in the books. This is the perfect time to do a success checkup!

If you’re not on course for reaching your 2010 goals, or you’ve lost momentum or you never even got started, you’ve got to check this out!

The Jim Rohn One-Year Success Plan is one of the most comprehensive success courses ever created. The 12-month program, developed by the late personal-achievement legend, will empower you to grow and continually transform yourself while focusing on a new pillar of success each month—and you can jump right in no matter what time of the year it is!

You’ll receive regular encouragement to stay on track, take positive action and move ahead with the motivation to achieve the life of your dreams!

Click here now to view a short video from SUCCESS magazine publisher Darren Hardy talking about why he strongly endorses The Jim Rohn One-Year Success Plan.

Experience the power of The Jim Rohn One-Year Success Plan!

I can remember ever since I was a kid I wanted to own my own business and become a millionaire…. I wanted to be an entrepreneur just like my dad.  He has owned his own small business for 30 years!  He works his butt off 6 days a week and I’m very proud of him for what he does.

I am currently working at a J.O.B. to support my family, which there is nothing wrong with, BUT I am sick and tired of trading my time for dollars!  It’s time to step up and build my own business!  I’m ready to own my own time!  How about you?  NOW is the time to build your own business, become an entrepreneur and start living life day to day the way YOU want to, not how someone else tells you to.

So, I am building my business (Parker Marketing) part-time, with a full-time attitude!  My goal is to fire my boss within 6-12 months!

If you are ready, this is a great article from Darren Hardy (from The special Entrepreneurship Issue of SUCCESS) to help get you started…

Power to the Entrepreneur!

We know you’re the type of person who wants more out of life; your career isn’t about a paycheck, it’s about creating your best possible life and becoming your best possible self. That’s why, even though we pride ourselves on offering you meaningful content every issue, I believe this edition is one of the most important issues we offer all year.

Entrepreneurialism is the heart of our economic system. In a time when everyone is claiming there’s no work to be had, entrepreneurs are out there creating jobs. In fact, an entrepreneur pursuing his or her passion is the greatest stimulus package there is.

Today, according to stats from the Small Business Administration, small businesses:
• Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms
• Employ more than half the private-sector employees
• Pay 44 percent of the total U.S. private payroll
• Have generated more than 64 percent of all new jobs during the past 15 years
• And create more than half the private gross domestic product

Entrepreneurialism is also the heart of the American dream. Taking control of our dreams, pursuing our passions and following through on that wild idea not only makes life more enjoyable—it pays well! Eighty percent of self-made millionaires became millionaires because they started their own business.

There has never been a better time to be an entrepreneur. At the beginning of the 20th century there were a mere 5,000 millionaires. By 1950 there were 100,000; 1980—1 million; 1990—2 million. By the year 2000, that number had reached 7 million.

Today, more than 10 million men and women have reached that coveted but not-so-elite status. Want even better news? That number is expected to double in the next 10 years. Now is the time—and this is the resource—that will help you figure out how to claim the rewards of being a successful entrepreneur.

One more encouraging statistic: Even though entrepreneurs are among the world’s wealthiest, 90 percent of all entrepreneurs started out at the bottom, broke or with little to no capital or savings.

Anyone can become an entrepreneur–and at any age. You see, being an entrepreneur isn’t about who or what you know; it’s about what you do. The skills and knowledge you need to succeed are all attainable.

Here’s to your entrepreneurial success!

I just started reading Darren Hardy’s new book, The Compound Effect, and absolutely love it!  This is such a simple book with just 6 chapters, but don’t let that fool you.  All I can say is if you are looking to have success in any area of your life, you have got to read this book.

This is what John C. Maxwell has to say about it… “The Compound Effect is a must-read book for success seekers. You want to know what it takes? You want to know what to do? It’s all in these pages. The Compound Effect is a clear and concise success operation manual!”

Here is the bottom line… (from Success.com)

The Compound Effect is the principle of reaping huge rewards from a series of small, smart choices. What’s most interesting about this process to me is that, even though the results are massive, the steps, in the moment, don’t feel significant. Whether you’re using this strategy for improving your health, relationships, finances, or anything else for that matter, the changes are so subtle, they’re almost imperceptible. These small changes offer little or no immediate result, no big win, no obvious I-told-you-so payoff. So why bother?

Your only path to success is through a continuum of mundane, unsexy, unexciting, and sometimes difficult daily disciplines compounded over time. The results, the life and the lifestyle of your dreams can be yours when you put the Compound Effect to work for you. If you use the principles outlined in The Compound Effect, you will create your fairy tale ending!

Here is where you can buy the book and also get some awesome free resources… http://TheCompoundEffect.com

Do you have problems?  I know I do… We all have problems! I bet everyone reading this could make a list of the major problems in their life right now.  Well, what if we change our attitude toward the problems in our life?  I do my best to live my life everyday like this…  how about you?

“Every problem or difficulty you face contains the seed of an equal or greater advantage or benefit.” – Napoleon Hill

Change Your Attitude Toward Problems

By Brian Tracy

In flying, the word “attitude” refers to the angle of flight of your approach relative to the horizon. The way you think about a problem determines your attitude, or approach, as well. You can use three words to change your attitude and your approach to any difficulty you face.

Situation
First of all, change the word “problem” to the word “situation.” Whereas “problem” is a negative word that triggers feelings of fear and anxiety, “situation” is neutral. Instead of saying, “We have a problem,” you can say, “We have a situation.”

Challenge
My personal preference is to change the word “problem” to the word “challenge.” Whenever something goes wrong, immediately say, “We have an interesting challenge facing us today.” “Challenge” is a positive word. When you think of a challenge, you think of something that you rise to, something that brings out the best in you and others. Challenges are what make life exciting and worth living. By rising to the challenges of day-to-day life, you fulfill more and more of your potential.

Opportunity
Perhaps the best word of all is “opportunity.” Instead of saying, “We have a problem,” you can say, “We have an unexpected opportunity.” Napoleon Hill is famous for saying, “Every problem or difficulty you face contains the seed of an equal or greater advantage or benefit.” Your job is to find the benefit, and this way of approaching a problem is determined by your attitude.

Attitude
This attitude of looking for the good in every situation, of looking for the advantage or benefit in any problem or difficulty, is the way that the most successful people think most of the time. Superior people, leaders in all areas, face the inevitable ups and downs of daily life on the way to their destinations by taking complete control of their thinking and their emotions. They do this by choosing the words they use to describe a situation, their tone of voice, and their behavior in dealing with problems.

Action Exercise
A mark of maturity, a vital quality on the road to success, happiness, and balance in life, is expecting problems and difficulties as normal, natural, and unavoidable parts of life. Becoming a superior person requires accepting that when you set off toward a big, exciting goal or destination, you will experience unexpected turbulence.

Crush It! Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion

Do you have a hobby you wish you could indulge in all day? An obsession that keeps you up at night? Now is the perfect time to take that passion and make a living doing what you love.  In Crush It! Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion, Gary Vaynerchuk shows you how to use the power of the Internet to turn your real interests into real businesses. Gary spent years building his family business from a local wine shop into a national industry leader. Then one day he turned on a video camera, and by using the secrets revealed here, transformed his entire life and earning potential by building his personal brand. By the end of this book, readers will have learned how to harness the power of the Internet to make their entrepreneurial dreams come true. Step by step, Crush It! is the ultimate driver’s manual for modern business.

This video montage really sums up why Gary wrote Crush It! and what it’s all about…

“Gary Vaynerchuk is one of those entrepreneurs who has discovered the secret to combining passion with business. He is always an inspiration and always entertaining. You owe it to yourself to read this book!” (Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com )

“Gary is a force of nature. His authentic, raw passion and caring touches everyone. His insights into social media & his message of opportunity could not be more timely.” (Tony Robbins )

“Gary was the first person to push me on the importance of personalbrand and transparency – this was months before anyone was talkingabout it, he’s always two steps ahead of anyone else.” (Kevin Rose, Founder of Digg.com )

“Anyone looking to supercharge their career should beg, borrow, and steal to learn Gary Vee’s techniques. He reinvented the rules to build a $60-million business from scratch-on his own terms.” (Tim Ferriss, #1 NY Times bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek )

Here is a great clip of John Addison about taking responsibility for your own success.

“You can either make money or make excuses… you can’t do both.”

Abraham Lincoln, Lucille Ball, and Michael Jordan are success stories that first began with failure…

Sometimes we look at people who have achieved a great deal of success and we wrongly think that everything must come easy for them. This powerful video illustration takes us inside some the greatest failures of all time so we can see the perseverance needed for them to achieve ultimate success. Abraham Lincoln, Lucille Ball, Walt Disney and Michael Jordan are success stories that first began with failure. This video illustration shows how failure fueled them to achieve beyond anyone’s expectations. If you’ve never failed, you’ve never lived.

Failure is the best part of success. They are like yin and yang; you can’t have one without the other. So learn to celebrate your failures. Truly successful people even say they are successful because they have failed more than anyone they know. They keep trying and each time it doesn’t work, it’s just a learning experience. So, go out there, Fail, Learn, Succeed. Fail, Learn, Succeed. Say it with me now, Fail. Learn.. Succeed!!!

Put it this way, you CANNOT get hung up on when something doesn’t go your way. If you stay fixated on the failure, then you cut off the other two steps: Learn and Succeed. Fight the temptation to dwell on the failure with EVERYTHING you’ve got. Get excited about failing! Then Learn, Then Succeed!!!

Knowledge fueled by emotion equals action. And action is the ingredient that ensures results. Only action can cause a reaction; to take it one step further, only positive action can cause a positive reaction.

Action… The whole world loves to watch those who make things happen, and it rewards them for causing waves of productive enterprise.

I stress this because today I see many people who are really sold on affirmations. And yet there is a famous saying, “Faith without action serves no useful purpose.” How true!

Now I have nothing against good affirmations when used as a tool to create action. And it’s also true that when repeated, to reinforce a disciplined plan, affirmations can help create wonderful results.

But there is also a very thin line between faith and folly. You see affirmations without action can be the beginning of self-delusion. And for your well-being there is little worse than self-delusion…

The man dreams of wealth and yet walks daily toward certain financial disaster, or the woman who wishes for happiness and yet thinks thoughts and commits acts that lead her toward certain despair, are both victims of the false hope which affirmations without action can manufacture. Why? Because words soothe and, like a narcotic, they can lull us into a state of complacency. Always remember: To make progress you must first get started!

Now the key is to get started today… Whatever the project, start today! Start setting your first goal…today. Start listening to educational CDs…today. Start contacting two prospects a day…today. Start following-up with your prospects…today. Start putting a portion of your bonus check into your new “investment for my fortune” account…today.

Get some momentum going on your new commitment for the good life. See how many activities you can pile on your new commitment to build your better life. Go all out! Break away from the downward pull of gravity. Start your thrusters going. Prove to yourself that the waiting is over and the hoping is past; that faith, and knowledge, and action have now taken charge.

Today is your new day, and it can be the beginning of your new life! With discipline you will be amazed at how much progress you’ll be able to make. Besides what have you got to lose, except the guilt and fear of the past?

Now if you’re really ready to build a better life, here’s my personal challenge to you: See how many things you can start, and continue, today…the first day of your new beginning. Because to make progress you must first get started!

To Your Success,

Jim Rohn – “America’s Foremost Business Philosopher”

You are an accumulation of your habits. From how you get out of bed, how you shower, how you dress, how you walk, sit, and talk, how you respond to the world, how you act in front of others, and how you think; you’re living out your habits.

Habits are necessary. They free up your mind so you can concentrate on how to survive day to day. You don’t have to think about how to drive your car so you can be on the lookout for danger while you are driving. You don’t have to think about how to walk so you can concentrate on where you’re going.

Unfortunately, habits can also keep you locked in self-destructive patterns, which will limit your success. To become successful, you will need to drop bad habits and develop new ones that are in line with the life you want to live.

People don’t suddenly appear in the life they want to live… their habits determine their outcome!

What are the habits you have that are keeping you from achieving your goals?

Really be honest with yourself here… Are you always running late? Do you return phone calls within 24 hours? Do you get enough sleep? Do you follow through on your promises? Do you plan out your day?

Imagine what your life would be like if all your habits were their productive counterparts!

What would your life be like if you ate healthy meals, exercised and got enough sleep?

What if you saved your money, stopped using credit cards and paid cash for everything?

What if you stopped procrastinating, overcame your fears, and began networking with people in your field?

Would your life be different? I bet it would!

So, my suggested action step for you is to write down some productive habits you could adopt and visualize in your life, step two is to ‘act as if’ you were living these new habits right now!

I’d like to help you get moving toward creating more successful habits, so I’d recommend you develop four of your new success habits each year, one for each quarter.

Once you pick the new habit you’re ready to adopt, next you’ll want to create a method that will support your new habit.

Here are some ideas… You could write it down on a card that you keep with you and read several times a day. You could make it a part of your daily visualization. You could also enlist the help of an accountability partner who has habits to change, or work with a personal coach who can keep you on track.

It’s important to make a 100% commitment to your new habit, so be specific about the steps that you’re willing to take in order to drop an old habit and adopt a new one. Don’t be vague about how you will change your habits. Spell it out for yourself so you can recognize situations that motivate you to act out your new habit.

Just developing four new habits a year will dramatically shift your life to be more in line with your vision. And the more in line it becomes, the easier the other habits are to replace because your perspective is shifting and you can see more clearly how your old habits aren’t serving you anymore.

Make the decision. Make the commitment. Then watch your new, positive life unfold!

Jack Canfield, America’s #1 Success Coach, is founder of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul© and a leading authority on Peak Performance and Life Success. If you’re ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get your FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: www.FreeSuccessStrategies.com