Whenever I am asked what I believe the goal and purpose of life is, my answer is the same, and it’s the theme of our October Issue of SUCCESS.

Of all the great pursuits in life, to me this is the most important. Every virtue, treasure and reward in life is obtained only through this quest. What is it? It is living your potential.

Robert Louis Stevenson said it more than a hundred years ago: “To become what we are capable of becoming is the only end in life.”

But what is potential? Webster’s dictionary defines potential as possible (as opposed to what’s currently actual) capable of being or becoming or a latent excellence or ability that may or may not be developed. So potential then is what you can become. It is the best possible version of yourself.

The first challenge, I believe, to living our potential—is realizing the greatness that is dormant inside of each of us.

Thomas Edison said, “If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.”

Dale Carnegie also taught, “We all have possibilities we don’t know about. We can do things we don’t even dream we can do.”

Why don’t we then? I think what stops most of us from tapping our inner genius; the hero or heroine inside each of us is fear. We are actually afraid of our greater potential.

19th century philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said it this way, “There is nothing of which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.”

I know I am constantly challenged by the philosophy espoused by Marianne Williamson when she says, “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? 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 are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of our highest potential that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. 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.”

Nelson Mandela echoes this when he says, “There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”

It is said that the greatest waste in the world is the difference between what we are and what we are capable of becoming.

But denying your potential isn’t just sad, it’s unhealthy. In fact, psychologists tell us nothing creates internal stress and trauma more than when what you are doing on the outside (your actions and behaviors) is incongruent with your potential on the inside.

Abraham Maslow warns, “If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.”

So where to you start? You start by read more »

Vanilla Haagen-Dazs… it must be made from angel’s milk. Sheer ecstasy. What heaven must be like (please!). I savor each lick until my taste buds scream in pain for more. And when I reluctantly swallow my last bite—that’s what hell must be like.

I recently allowed myself to have this sweet-bitter experience at a local Haagen-Dazs store. While eating, I temporarily awoke from my blissful nirvana to see (in horror) that I had licked off all the ice-cream on top. I was not ready to bite into the cone (that is the beginning of the end!). So I went back up to the counter with a big milk covered smile (yes, angel’s milk) and said, as charming as I could muster, “for a real passionate lover of your great product would you kindly add a gratuitous small shaving to the top here (holding my topless cone out to her) to help extend my joy… just a little longer?” Even with a strict policy against such allowances, she said, “It would be my pleasure” and plunked another full (albeit hollow) scoop of vanilla bliss on my cone. The charm must have worked (or the promise to promote this story on my blog – I’m kidding!).

When I came back to the table with my new (free!) scoop my wife couldn’t believe it! One, that I asked… and two, that she gave it me! I said simply, “it never hurts to ask.”

This is true in most instances, most every day. I’m a big believer that you only get what you ask for. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. So why not ask for everything? The worst possible thing that can happen is they say no.

Ask, and Ye Shall Receive. Ye Have Not, Because Ye Ask Not

Ask your way to wealth

The most money you will ever make (penny saved is a penny earned) is by asking for it. Let me give you an example or two…

I was in a retail store recently. I asked the manager, read more »

Now I don’t like this fact. I would philosophically argue against this fact. But it is a fact… and the evidence is all around us.

Who makes the best-tasting hamburger in the world? Doubtful you’d anoint McDonald’s with that title, but they outsell everyone else by many billions of dollars.

What is the best wine in the world? Certainly Franzia (which comes in a box!) wouldn’t be your first or 100th guess, but it is the best selling.

What is the highest-quality bottled water? If you tested it, it certainly wouldn’t be Aquafina (owned by PepsiCo), Dasani (owned by Coca-Cola) or Poland Spring (owned by Nestle Waters), but those are the number 1, 2 and 3 best selling.

Nine times out of 10 it is not the best or highest-quality clothing line, automobile, restaurant, CPA firm, real estate agent, lawyer, furniture manufacturer, refrigerator, etc. that sells the most or becomes the biggest—it is the ones who market themselves the best.

This is the business axiom that I witness all around me every day:
The ultimate success of a product or service is 10% the quality of the product and 90% the quality of the marketing.

Now while I don’t necessarily LIKE that fact, as I believe the success of a product or service should be what’s most important and it should stand ENTIRELY on the value it delivers, that is just not how it works in reality.

Even if you are simply an individual in a sales organization this is true. It is not necessarily the best, the highest quality, highest class, most refined people that make it to the top… it is the ones who market themselves, network themselves, position themselves with credibility amongst their peers and demonstrate their growing and developing selves to the circle around them that end up at the top of the sales organization.

Now, let me also add this: If your product or service is bad… or even if you are bad, unethical or without integrity, no amount of marketing will make you or your product or service successful—especially in this day and age of Yelp, Twitter, Facebook and Google. You and your product or service reputation will die a certain and expedient viral death.

Here is a not so funny (literally) great example of this: read more »

After a keynote training I did this past weekend, a lady came up to me to ask what I thought of Rolfing.

“I don’t enjoy ralphing at all” I quickly responded. Then she explained it was a way to “structurally integrate and manipulate the whole body into gravity.” “Okaaay,” I replied. “Why, do you ask?” She explained she wanted to rise to the top rank of her sales organization so she has been paying a “personal manifestation expert” to train her.

He has her Rolfing twice a week, psychically hugging her inner child three times a day (I kid you not), setting up her feng shui money corner and chanting affirmations out loud in front of the mirror for 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at night. “How many prospecting calls does he have you making each day?” I asked. “We haven’t talked about that” she replied.

Now the advice doesn’t need to be as off base or absurd as this to be wrong. In fact a lot of ‘expert’ advice is wrong.

Why?

• What works for one person doesn’t always work for another.
• The background or originating experience is different.
• People have different personalities and strengths.
• The timing and application is different.
• Most ‘experts’ contradict each other anyway.
• And frankly, there is just a lot of really bad, wrongheaded and bogus ‘expert’ advice out there. In some cases the advice is dangerous. In many cases it is simply distracting, thus productively damaging and time wasting.

As a 20-year consummate consumer of ‘expert’ personal-development material, I have heard, seen, tried and tested most all of it. As a 16-year business leader in the industry and publisher of SUCCESS, I am in the business of vetting so called ‘experts.’ (That is a big part of our job for you here at SUCCESS—to sort, filter and curate on your behalf, so you get the best and only the real-deal expert advice in SUCCESS magazine or on SUCCESS.com.)

Here is the No. 1 criterion I use to determine if someone is worthy of the ‘expert’ title: read more »

That is a quote from my mentor Jim Rohn. When I first heard Jim say this, I thought he meant giving created indebtedness on the part of the receiver—that you gave so you could get back. But I had it all wrong. Jim taught me that the real gift—the lasting benefit of giving—is what the act itself does for you. In essence, giving to others is the greatest gift you can give yourself.

Giving feels good, but there’s more to it than that. Helping others incites physical and emotional responses within us. When we direct our energy and focus on meeting others’ needs, we push aside our brooding and negative emotions, especially those that contribute to stress-induced psychological and physical illnesses. Studies reveal that when we help others, we release extra amounts of endorphins into our system, and we get what researchers call a “helper’s high.”

Giving has a direct impact on the body’s neurological, hormonal and immune systems—it can even prolong your life. One study found that older individuals who are actively involved in helping others outlive those who aren’t. The physical benefits of helping others have been shown to have a greater impact on longevity than exercising four times a week, if you can believe that!

The benefits extend beyond the physical, also fostering traits that undergird a successful life. As a result, our careers and relationships often improve when we purposefully seek to make a difference in others’ lives. And studies show that people of all ages who actively help others, even in small ways, feel the happiest.

This September issue of SUCCESS featuring Michael Dell and his wife Susan explores read more »