In the midst of reading Jim Collins’ Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t, I came across the Stockdale Paradox …

Good To Great discusses what makes eleven companies made the quantum leap from good to great and in one of the chapters, Jim Collins explained that every company faced significant adversity along the way to greatness.

In every case, the management team responded with a powerful psychological duality. On the one hand, they stoically accepted the brutal facts of reality. On the other hand, they maintained an unwavering faith in the endgame, and a commitment to prevail as a great company despite the brutal facts. We came to call this duality the Stockdale Paradox.

Admiral Jim Stockdale, the highest ranking US Officer held as a prisoner of war (POW) in Hanoi during the Vietnam war had to live through dark times of his life, enduring torture of his captors, without ever knowing when he will be released or whether he will ever be released for that matter.

Here’s how Stockdale put it:

“I never lost faith in the end of the story. I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.”

Subsequently, after his release, Stockdale teaches philosophy at Stanford University and he’s a brilliant, sensitive, and courageous man. He was even remembered as a Vice-Presidential candidate.

In life, as we experience setbacks, disappointments and even crushing events such as accidents, disease, loss of a loved one, or even like what Admiral experienced in Vietnam, what separates people is how we deal with the inevitable difficulties. This is the Stockdale Paradox:

“This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end — which you can never afford to lose — with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

As I write this, it reminds me of two people:

1. Matt Morris, President and CEO of Success University, who personally experienced many challenges in his life before he became very successful, said, “Whatever didn’t kill you makes you stronger!”
2. My mother who departed last week - for many years in her life, due to our poor upbringing, she had to do a lot of manual work like washing clothes and sewing, just to keep the eight of us alive. When asked, she always said, ‘Just do it and it will be done!”

In Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t, Jim Collins’ research found that the key elements of greatness are deceptively simple and straightforward. These leaders are able to strip away the noise and clutter and focus on the few things that have the greatest impact!

They were able to do so because they operated from both sides of the Stockdale Paradox, never letting one side overshadow the other. If you can adopt this dual pattern, your odds of making a series of good decisions is high, leading you to a sustained transition to breakthrough results.

I just read Secrets of the Internet Millionaire Mindby Matt Bacak who brands himself as the “Powerful Promoter”.

Matt is an incredible guy who started his first company with employees at the age of 12!

Here are two nuggets I thought might benefit you and your business:

• Internet millionaires ask questions beginning with what and how … but not why! Matt Bacak said that ‘why’ reminds us of childhood days that we often are asked, ‘Why did you do that?’  Instead, ask questions like ‘What are my goals?’ and ‘How do I get there?’
• Internet millionaires use two magic words: systemize and monetize. As an engineer by training, I particularly like the term ’systemize’. In business too, if we can systemize what we want to do, our business or work would become process-dependent rather than people-dependent. With a system, when you put in a certain input, you are guaranteed a certain output…  As I write, that reminds me of The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It - that I would recommend anyone who wants to start or own a small business to read from cover to cover!

This morning, I reviewed ‘The Secret to Relationships’ in the book, ‘The Secret’ which revealed that the law of attraction in the most powerful law in the Universe.

The author, Rhonda Byrne, mentioned that we can turn a difficult relationship around by taking a piece of paper and write all the things that you appreciate that person for the next thirty days. Instead of complaining about that person, appreciate their sense of humor and appreciate how supportive they are.

On the 4th and final day of Stephen Pierce’s ‘Unleash Your Marketing Genius’ (UYMG) event in Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia held from 28th Sept 2007 to 1st Oct 2007, Stephen explained this profound wisdom:

“You can not be what you are not…
But you can *become* what you are not.”

How do you get a butterfly?

First, it started from the egg that hatches into a caterpillar which eats and grows. It soon makes a cocoon and it changes into a butterfly inside the cocoon.

The butterfly had to struggle to come out through the cocoon by first making a hole and then pushing its way out, while building its muscles and strength in the process. If we help the butterfly by cutting open the cocoon, the butterfly would come out easily, drop to the ground and soon dies.

Here’s the important lesson for us:

Although a caterpillar can *become* a butterfly, it cannot be a butterfly. It simply won’t fly. But given time, through struggles and challenges, it becomes stronger and stronger and transform itself into a beautiful butterfly and would be able to fly effortlessly!

Stephen Pierce shared that once upon a time, he had been bankrupt twice and was even shot! He had no home, no car, and he had to pick himself up by reading lots of books just to change his perspective! To me, that reaffirms that Personal Development is the way to go to achieve the success that we want to achieve in life.

The DVD that shipped with Success University’s Success Express Issue #2 features two interviews of two world famous success giants: Brian Tracy and Denis Waitley.

Interviewed by another successful young man – Jerry “DRhino” Clark – himself, it is jam-packed with gems of wisdom. (The only regret is somehow, the DVD cannot play on my own laptop and I had to view it on a DVD player.)

Here are a few things and nuggets of personal development wisdom that I picked up as I watched the Brian Tracy interview:

• Brian Tracy started was a high school drop out and started his career as a laborer. (Does anyone have any excuse not succeeding if they do not hold a college or university degree?)
  
• He discovered the magic of personal development when he was around 25 years old and got extremely excited at the vast array of resources like books, tapes, seminars and the huge amount of wisdom, advice and tips he can learn.
  
• He started to set goals and discovered that he achieved results beyond his expectations. Essentially, he modeled after successful people by following some of these success habits:
  • Sleep early and rise early
  • Plan and organize each day
  • Set goals
• Brian Tracy mentioned that he can now sit down and write a 300-page book without reference to anything! All he needs to do is to organize the material. This is the result of his accumulation of knowledge over the years!
  
• Jerry Clark himself mentioned that he had also come to his level of success because he never stopped learning for the past 18 years! And he started by attending Brian’s seminar and reading Brian’s books. (Shouldn’t we do the same and get our hands on these personal development resources?
  
• Brian Tracy now has 300 audio and video learning programs translated to more than 20 languages around the world!!
  
• During an interview of three young millionaires before the age of 30, they were asked how many businesses they had started before they succeeded. After consolidation, the answer was 17! So, Brian Tracy asked if they had failed 16 times and succeeded 1 time?

  Of course, the answer is no! These entrepreneurs learned from the experiences of the past 16 times and therefore succeeded on the 17^{th time!}
  

As I watched a DVD of Zig Ziglar speaking at a seminar, I heard the man himself said his famous words, “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.”

He said that it works for every profession!

He illustrated with an example - he spoke at a medical profession seminar and a doctor asked how that can help in their profession. Zig said that if a doctor treats him and he gets well, he’ll go and tell everyone. But if he dies, he’ll tell no one!

That is truly a profound quote, don’t you think so?

If you can think of any example, I appreciate that you drop a comment or two here.

As I read T. Harv Eker’s Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth, I learned a ton of things of how the rich think.In his book, T. Harv Eker first explained that our money blueprint determines our financial destiny and is conditioned by various factors such as the environment in which we are brought up, what we saw or heard when we were young. Following that, he explained in full detail in 17 wealth files of how rich people think.

Reading a back issue of Success Express, a monthly newsletter publication of Success University, I learned a few great leadership tips by Chris Widener.Chris is an internationallyrecognized speaker, author and radio host and a contributing editor to the Jim Rohn One-Year Success Plan.

For a free 14-day trial of how you can also receive these tips, visit this link below:

http://autoprofit.successuniversity.com/new

T. Harv Eker is well known for making this statement: “Give me five minutes, and I can predict your financial future for the rest of your life.” In fact, I heard that when I attended the National Achievers Congress (NAC) here in Singapore in May 2007.How can any man dare to make such a bold statement? Here’s what I found when reading his book, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealthin which T. Harv Eker first explained that in a short conversation, he could identify what’s called our personal money and success “blueprint” which is already embedded in our subconscious mind. And this blueprint, more than anything else combined, will determine our financial destiny.