Advanced Steps: What You Need to Succeed

Here's the third part of this series: some extra things you can do to become more successful than you ever dreamed.

• Work smarter, not harder. I'll never forget the story of a guy who was selling used cars. It was a slow and not very lucrative job until he noticed that people kept calling to see where they could buy specific parts to fix their used cars. That gave him an idea to start a junk yard. Now instead of selling one car at a time, he has hundreds of cars in the back 40 and lets people go out and get the pieces that they need. He sits in the shop and takes their money for these items while each car is earning him more money in parts than he would have earned selling it whole. How can you double your productivity with the lest amount of effort?
• Use the efforts of others to make you a success. This is how businesses grow. One kid mowing a lawn will only earn a set amount of money for a given amount of time. If that same kid can use his time to round up ten jobs then have his ten friends mow ten yards at the same time while he gets a cut of each job, he can then can spend his time seeking other jobs to give his friends. He has basically increased his earning exponentially while doing little actual grunt work.
• Use your money to make you money. How would you like to be on perma-vacation while your bank account continues to increase every day? The more money you save and invest, the less actual work you have to do. The magic of compounding interest in just that, magical.
• Think spin-offs. Dave Ramsey started from where he was--broke. He then learned about personal finance to get himself out of debt, when this worked out, he counseled others on how to increase their financial freedom, he then decided to write a book, then he put together a radio show...get the picture? Each of his additional streams of income is now earning him exponentially what one single work task would; however the core ideas and education are all the same--he was able to use what he knows to basically set up a financial tree with each branch earning him an income. How can what you do be taken in another direction to benefit your bottom line? We'll go back to the food storage idea. Say you want to have a year's worth of food in storage. You can purchase just for yourself but decide to expand on that idea. How about if you purchase ten times what you need then sell the excess at a small profit to others you know who would like to store food as well? Others benefit and you get the food you need to store basically paid for by others. Next you think others may benefit from your food storage experience so you write a book about food storage. Next comes a website, public demonstrations of your craft, maybe you teach classes on the art of food storage, and become a consultant for companies that make food for long term storage.

Intermediate Steps: What You Need to Succeed

We covered the basics of success in the last post. Here are some intermediate steps to speed you along to your goals:

• Have a plan. You need a goal or vision of what you want to achieve so you will know what you are striving for. If you don't know where you are going you won't get there. Instead of saying "I want a year's worth of food stored in case of an emergency", write down exactly what that year's worth of food would look like. It is much easier to have five bushels of wheat stored in your garage if on your shopping list it says "five bushels of wheat" and not just "food".
• Get educated. Whether formally through schooling or informally through books and websites, you need to continually improve your skills in your chosen field. Sure you learned Basic in 1985 but that won't keep you in the computer programming field today. Every field, from preparedness to nursing to electronics, continues to change and evolve; you need to be right there, learning as each change is made, so that you will keep your knowledge and skills sharp.
• Be useful to others. You get "paid" whether with money, a job, opportunities, gifts, job tips, stock tips, helpful information, etc. by how useful you are to others. If someone finds what you do helpful to them, they will reward you. If you are a beautiful 20 year old female and a middle age man finds you attractive, he is likely to reward you with trips, cars, money, and clothes. If you are a 12 year old boy who just posted the funniest video anyone has ever seen on YouTube, the media/your friends/advertisers are likely to reward you with fame and/or fortune. If a guy comes out to the range with a new handgun and zero information about how to use it and you educate him on the basics of safe shooting and responsible gun ownership, he will remember what you did for him. He may not reward you today but who knows, the next job interview you walk into may have that guy sitting on the other side of the table.

The Basics: What You Need to Succeed

No matter your situation, whether you are traveling through a foreign country, traversing the corporate culture, or pulling yourself up from a difficult financial/social/emotional problem, you really only need the basics to survive. You don't need a Mercedes, posh address, or lots of money in order for others to help you succeed at your goals, get that job you are after, or have people offer you things just out of the goodness of their heart. Like it or not, people judge you immediately on your appearance and next on your social skills. Would you help out someone who smells, looks like hell, has a crappy attitude, and basically doesn't care about themselves? Probably not. How about the person with the following attributes?

• Good hygiene. A shower with soap is all you need. Deodorant is also a good thing. You don't need five kinds of body wash or $30 shampoo to be clean. It is amazing how many people live in tin shacks with no running water in third world countries yet they keep themselves clean and presentable at all times.
• Clean clothes. A person shows how they feel about themselves by how they dress. Again, you don't need to go to Saks to buy super expensive clothes in order to look good. You can go to the Goodwill, pick out a couple of nice ensembles (if you are clothing-challenged, bring a friend with a good sense of style) and make sure they are cleaned and ironed each time you wear them. This is also very common even in poor countries--clothes are washed by hand, hung out to dry, then ironed to perfection and the person looks like a million dollars.
• Good manners. This skill is sadly lacking in many pockets of society these days. Here's what grandma repeated time and time again in reference to manners: stand up straight, don't slouch, look people in the eye, acknowledge people with a smile like you are happy to see them, have a firm handshake, arms off the table, don't chew with your mouth open, don't interrupt people when they are speaking, don't gossip, be honest, say please, say thank you, talk don't yell, treat others like you want to be treated.
• Good attitude. Be happy, be positive, and have a "can-do" attitude. Being grumpy, snipey, manipulative, and complaining incessantly is no way to win friends and influence people. Be accepting of others, helpful, and non-judgemental.

Those are the basics to being accepted basically anywhere on the planet.