The Three Forgotten Secrets of Success

In our lives we limit our vision and therefore fail to discover the most powerful tools we have for success and they are how we choose to think, what we choose to learn, and how we choose to act! This lesson has been taught to me by some of the most difficult and challenging moments of my life. The first is when my Great Uncle Chad who had worked in the construction business in the long days of asbestos exposure was diagnosed with lung cancer. He was given six months to live as he degenerated quickly. He lived for a further eighteen months most of which was spent on a home hospital bed in his living room. I will never forget going to visit him right before he died. I told him how sorry I was he had to suffer so much and live so far beyond his diagnosis to just suffer more. He took my hand and calmly told me how thankful he was to have lived that long and how privileged he felt for the ability to suffer at the end of his life because he had learned so much from the suffering. Wow! I could not fathom what he meant. You mean we may not choose everything that happens to us in life yet we still have the freedom to choose what we do with our circumstances, what we learn from them and how we succeed in the midst of them? To me that statement was the summation of one of my Great Uncle Chad’s greatest successes in life. He could not overcome the cancer, indeed he died from it, but he chose not to let the cancer overcome him!
To be honest it wasn’t until a little later down the road I understood what he meant. My wife, Cortney, and I were surprised a little over two years ago with a curveball we had never expected. I was standing in a Macy’s store in Twin Falls, ID when my wife, who was pregnant at the time, called me to tell me that she had been to the doctor and something was wrong with our baby. That was the moment my whole world stood still. I remember driving home, fighting through tears and scared to death of what could happen. In the weeks to follow we went to many specialists most of which had never seen our son’s condition before. We soon came to realize how rare this condition was. In fact Joshua is one of only ten kids ever to be diagnosed with an aneurysm on his heart. The doctors told us eight of these kids died before birth, the ninth within two years of birth. Josh’s chances were slim and we would not know at any step of the journey what was going to happen. Talk about a defining moment. When you have to look the possible death of a child in the face against insurmountable odds and decide not to give up. This is a point at which we step into the darkness, we give up control. Before this experience I would have thought this would be the most limiting, hopeless and sure to fail experience in my life. Instead I found a freedom I had never experienced before. That at the moments of deepest fear, despair and possible failure in life we maintain our ability to choose what we do with our circumstances. We also gain the greatest ability to succeed because our vision, if we will lift our eyes from the moment, shows us things we have never seen before and never yet experienced. Now Joshua has been a miracle. He is two years old and has defied all the odds for everything. He has written his own story. We do not know how long he will be with us yet we have learned so much, we have chosen to rejoice in the journey and we have chosen to cherish each moment so that no matter what happens nothing can take from us the joy we have experienced from our little Joshua. That is true success that amidst the greatest challenges of life we can choose to experience joy, to succeed in the face of obstacles, to learn the lessons we would not otherwise learn and to go forward with faith regardless of the odds!
These principles may seem to be easier said than done. Like anything you will never know unless you have the courage to try them. To take a chance at believing and decide you will incorporate these timeless principles in your life and most importantly into your daily choices. Life in fact is simply the grand total of everything we choose. So first, let’s discover The Three Forgotten Secrets of Success:

1. We define ourselves by our choices.
2. There is NO point of arrival. It is all about the journey.
3. Practice does not make perfect, it teaches us what our best is and how to achieve it.

We define ourselves by our choices. We live in a world that says you are this way because of genetics, environment, etc. True there are things we may face and experience due to these factors. However, it is truly what we choose to do with these factors that will define who we are. It is not what life hands to us, we are not bound to act a certain way in every given circumstance. Just because something is human nature, a consequence of life we can’t control or anything else doesn’t mean we have to ever relinquish our ability to choose. The freedom to choose is the most liberating factor in helping us to achieve personal success. I have caught myself in the past saying, “I am not good with numbers so I am not analytical and cannot be good at that.” I learned to be analytical and apply the skills with numbers I never knew I had by jumping in, learning and actually applying analytics in business. I hear people say all the time, “I am just not good at that.” “I am not mechanically inclined.” “I don’t have that talent.” Whatever happened to believing we could learn and apply principles we may not have as second nature? We can apply these principles to us to become good at things we are not, learn things we don’t know and not give up before we begin. To begin indeed is the catalyst of successful thinking. We must choose to begin. To begin by not defining ourselves by rigid limitations that are not true. There are genetics, life circumstances, etc. that give limitations. I will not be a professional sports player. However, I choose whether or not that precludes my ability to be a good athlete, stay in shape, be an athletic coach, stay healthy due to an active lifestyle or to be a resource to my kids in helping them learn a sport they want to play. Wow! Look at how we just discovered in the midst of 1 limitation we had at least 5 possibilities! We choose to see the possibilities rather than the limitations. Nothing can ever take away our ability to choose to see, choose to act, choose to do and choose to achieve the possibilities which will exist no matter what life hands us! True it is we cannot be all things to all people. However, we can be many things. Within our sphere of talents and abilities our possibilities are endless.
One of the great, defining moments of my life happened in my younger years. As a child I was very shy. I had a tremendously difficult early childhood worrying about things going on around me and some very difficult experiences I went through. I turned inward, preferred playing by myself and became more disconnected from everyone else. My parents put me in preschool because they thought I was “antisocial” and would struggle in school. Those were the famous last words of my parents. I learned quickly that those having fun reached out to others, became involved and participated in many things. I was afraid and scared to death. Participating, talking to people, talking in front of people, etc. made my palms sweat, my stomach churn, etc. I began forcing myself to face it simply by doing what made me uncomfortable because I wanted to change. The desire to change is a beginning: a catalyst for something greater. We can then choose to act to re-enforce that desire regardless of the consequences we have to deal with. I cannot honestly identify the break through point yet somewhere in the midst of this pursuit I overcame my fear, the physical consequences were gone and I gained the ability to do something that before I could of said was an impossible limitation to overcome. Those who know me now with my excessive personality would wonder how it was possible I was ever a shy, self-conscious kid. People can change! I can now introduce myself and befriend perfect strangers. I can speak in front of huge crowds of people. This fundamental change to my personality has been crucial to success in everything I have done.
Even real limitations are not unconquerable when we see the possibilities and choose to go after them! One crucial principal in choosing to define who we are is to forget about what we cannot control and focus on what we can control! Too often we waste our lives, our time and thwart success by spending all our time worrying about or focusing on what we cannot control. It is expedient to set aside what we cannot control and go after what we can control in every moment we find ourselves in. One other thing to consider is what is actual verses what is perceived. Who said I was born shy? Really? Perhaps I became shy because of life’s factors and my choices involving them? Yet within myself was always the talent of reaching out to others and being outgoing. We may have dispositions and yet sometimes they are just a smoke screen to keep us from discovering our greatest talents. After all on the spectrum of strengths and weaknesses often our greatest weaknesses are just the opposite of our greatest strengths. That is indeed the reason we are given talents or strengths so we can use them to overcome our opportunities and weaknesses! Sometimes it is like having all of the weapons and losing the war because we simply do not choose to use them. How weak does the muscle that is never used become? Indeed, the greatest strength that that muscle achieves is when it faces resistance. What builds that muscle stronger and able to apply greater strength in the future is the amount of opposition, break down and building it experiences to become strong. That is why I love change! It causes us to challenge our comfort zone, get out of it and experience things we otherwise would not have chosen to experience no matter how difficult it is at the same time.
Nelson Mandela, a man who struggled through persecution to lead South Africa through apartheid and bitter racism faced an insurmountable challenge. After years of obstacles, defeats and what seemed as certain failure he said these words as the President of South Africa in his 1994 Inaugural Address (quoting Marianne Williamson, Return to Love), “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in all of us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” (Williamson, 1992). Never forget that life may give and life may take yet we have the ability to choose to define ourselves, to see the possibilities, to focus on what we can control and forget about what we cannot. To succeed we truly hold the choice in our hands as to whether or not we will. Will you challenge your current thinking and choose to define yourself as able to choose who you want to become and what you want to do? Neal A. Maxwell said it this way, “Of course our genes, circumstances, and environments matter very much, and they shape us significantly. Yet there remains an inner zone in which we are sovereign, unless we abdicate. In this zone lies the essence of our individuality and our personal accountability.” (Maxwell, 26).
We define ourselves by our choices. We have the ability to succeed. The question is will we choose to? Ralph Waldo Emerson provided our hope in this statement, “That which we persist in doing becomes easier to us; not that the nature of the thing has changed, but our ability to do has increased.” (Emerson, 1). One of my favorite statements is: “It is not about me!” Think of all the learning, resources, other people, teams, etc. that we have access to in order to succeed! Our only mistake would be choosing to limit ourselves and give up on success.
There is NO point of arrival. It is all about the journey. So many of us are deceived by our false perception of the American Dream, or universally put the Dream of Humanity: to succeed and find happiness in life. Success whether material or anything else does not come from the lie that you can get something for nothing. Work is required and real labor with long-term perseverance alone produces results. Many people have a fleeting feeling daily that they are missing something in their lives. They reach for passion, fulfillment and the realization of their dreams. We always stretch for a future moment of arrival as if it was a static place of existence. This is the place where all of our dreams come true, when we receive all that we have suffered for, when all of our choices in our allusion finally mean something. The reality is that there is NO point of arrival. Life is not about arriving, it is about the journey. You never get to check into a perpetual resort where life stops and you become all that you wanted, experience everything you wanted and have all that you have ever dreamed of. The experience, the joy and yes, the trials / tribulations are in the journey of life. This is how we in fact learn and experience the manner of happiness.
When we do not remember that the journey is the reason we are here we lose sight of the path to true success. This feeling of a place of arrival also causes us to remain where we are, become complacent and insulate ourselves from change or experiences that will build our ability to become successful. In essence we choose to stagnate. This false concept of a point of arrival can also cause disappointment and discouragement since we never seem to get there. May we free ourselves right now from such a cycle of degeneration. There is no point or place of arrival. Life is about our choosing to take the journey. This concept can give us unlimited understanding, vision and perspective. Consider the often used Parable of the Mountain. We speak of climbing the mountain top as an allegory of success or achieving goals and dreams in life. To differentiate this concept of a state of arrival verses the journey, consider that the goal of climbing the mountain top is not to get to the top of the mountain. What? The goal is instead what you experience on the way up the mountain, on top of the mountain and on the way down. If those who climbed Everest remained there at the top we would never know who they were, what they did or what it was like to experience it. The goal is never to get to a state where the goal or dream exists with us and we with it with no future purpose in permanent bliss. No way! The journey is far too fun and far too enriching to live that way. In the Parable of the Mountain we need to consider the view: what we saw at each point on the way up, what we could see at the top and what we saw differently on the way down because of the new perspective we gained throughout the journey. That is not all. What was the trail like? Were there obstacles? What about the different types of terrain? What equipment and supplies did you bring, use, etc.? The most important part of this whole experience is what did you learn? How did this experience change you? What made you keep going? How did you overcome the obstacles? What is different about you because of the mountain experience? Goals and dreams, indeed success, are much like the Parable of the Mountain.
There is NO point of arrival. It is all about the journey. The most important part of that journey is that to keep experiencing success you have to move on to the next mountain and take with you everything you have chosen to learn. Sometimes we forget that in experiencing the road of life the entire point is the experience. The road to success is much like the road of life. It is not so much a highway to a destination. It is instead a road trip that becomes the destination because of all that is experienced. Like any good road trip, we can just keep experiencing success if we choose to focus on the journey!
Practice does not make perfect, it teaches us what our best is and how to achieve it. Similar to our prior point this principle convinces us that we may never attain perfection yet that does not mean we cannot discover excellence in reaching for it. Too often we get discouraged if we do not do something perfectly or feel perfection is out of reach. Practice is the only way we can strive for perfection. The reality is we will not achieve perfection in this life, however, we can experience excellence. Practice gives us the ability to be excellent. Whether an athlete training for the Olympics, a musician striving to be a great star, a scientist searching for a cure to an illness, a businessperson building your dream or a salesperson seeking to hit a goal the practice you invest is integral to achieving excellence and thus success. “Some great athletes have had to overcome handicaps before they have succeeded in developing their talents. Shelly Mann was such an example. ‘At the age of five she had polio. … Her parents took her daily to a swimming pool where they hoped the water would help hold her arms up as she tried to use them again. When she could lift her arm out of the water with her own power, she cried for joy. Then her goal was to swim the width of the pool, then the length, then several lengths. She kept on trying, swimming, enduring, day after day after day, until she won the gold medal for the butterfly stroke—one of the most difficult of all swimming strokes’” (Ashton, 86). Likewise, I have always been inspired by the story of Ann Adams who was so disabled she could not move her arms or legs. She became an artist by training herself to draw by holding a pencil between her lips and using her mouth. One of my heroines is Helen Keller. Blind and Deaf, she wanted to learn to communicate, indeed to write and to inspire us all. Through a great teacher, she gained the ability to practice and learn. My favorite quote from her is, “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt by the heart.” (Keller, 1). Clearly, these great examples and their ability to choose to feel, perceive and see what many of us choose not to experience gave them the capability to achieve success in spite of their obstacles through practice! I dislike the word handicap, disability or the phrase special needs. Our son Joshua is special, he has different abilities. True he lacks abilities that others possess, yet he possesses something to compensate. This includes a “sixth sense” my wife and I have noticed that he has the ability to perceive how others feel: comfort them when they are down, etc. He also possesses a permanent optimism and mostly goes forward with a happy disposition regardless of what is going on around him. He is special and has unique abilities. Through practice he keeps exceeding expectations and limitations others have set for him because Joshua chooses not to see or acknowledge them. Often this passion, desire and drive to persist are greater. The will to practice and overcome are greater if the challenge is greater as well. Therefore, we may learn that even our opportunities and obstacles can be overcome through practice, teaching us our best so that we may pursue success.
We choose to practice. We choose to continually become excellent. We alone in shooting for perfection achieve our best through practice and this is the very essence of what excellence is. It is the juncture of possibilities and dreams where the most amazing discovery is the ability you have gained because you chose to pursue success. Through practicing, persisting at whatever we are trying to do or a skill we are learning or an opportunity we are strengthening we can become our best. So many times we talk about overcoming obstacles, weaknesses and eliminating passions. The truth is we may never completely overcome or eliminate these things. Yet we can learn from them, we can bridle them, we can practice overcoming them. Thus success will come from our flexing of our muscles against the resistance of life.
There are several ways we can apply this principle. One of them is our tendency to avoid things we don’t like, to face change with trepidation, to refuse to learn something new. We must get over ourselves, stop making excuses and liberate ourselves from the fear of failure. Ambrose Redmoon once penned, “Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgment that something is more important than fear.” (Redmoon, 1). Although our fears may never go away, can we value success more than fear? Absolutely! It is how anyone in history that achieved greatness did it. They looked in the face of fear and acted on the judgment that something else that they wanted to experience was more important than fear. In short they chose to define themselves, to experience the journey and to continually experience success. Only in doing this could they understand what their possibilities truly were. We can do the same.
Practice does not make perfect, it teaches us what our best is and how to achieve it. Let us succeed by learning some tools that practically help us apply the timeless principles we have been learning.