A couple years ago I interviewed Charlie Plumb, who was a U.S. Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. I learned a very valuable leadership lesson that I’d like to pass on to you here.

Charlie flew 74 consecutive successful combat missions. However on his 75th mission his F4 Phantom fighter plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. The plane exploded with some 12,000 pounds of jet fuel, flipping the plane topsy-turvy, end-over-end, down toward a rice paddy below.

Charlie was forced to eject. The only thing between him and imminent death was his parachute that he prayed would open…

Then finally he felt the opening shock of the parachute. During the 90 seconds of descent he was being shot at. “The audacity of this enemy,” Charlie said, “they just knocked down my multimillion-dollar airplane and now they’re trying to kill the pilot!”

Charlie made it down to the ground alive, but was then captured and spent 2,103 brutal days as a prisoner of war in a communist Vietnamese prison camp.

Many years after being repatriated, Charlie, his wife and another couple were sitting in a little restaurant in Kansas City together before going to a theater show that night.

Two tables over was this guy who kept looking at him. Charlie would look back but didn’t recognize him, but he kept catching this guy staring at him. Finally the guy stood up and walked over to Charlie’s table and pointed at him with a sort of a stern look on his face and he said, “You’re Captain Plumb.” Charlie looked up at him and said, “Yes, I am Captain Plumb.” The guy said, “You’re that guy. You flew jet fighters in Vietnam. You’re a fighter pilot, part of that ‘Top Gun’ outfit. You launched from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, you parachuted into enemy territory and you spent six years as a prisoner of war.”

Somewhat dumbfounded Charlie looked up at the guy and asked, “How in the world did you know all that?” The man chuckled, smiled and said, “Because I packed your parachute.”

Charlie was speechless. The man grabbed Charlie’s hand and pumped his arm and said, “I guess it worked” and walked off.

Charlie laid awake that night thinking about all the times he had walked through the

long narrow room, below sea level on the aircraft carrier, with the tables where the men packed the parachutes. How many times he must have walked past this man without even saying “hi,” “good morning” or “good job” or “I appreciate what you do.”

“How many times did I pass the man whose job would eventually save my life… because I was a jet jockey, a Top Gun racing around the sky at twice the speed of sound. Because I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor.”

Think about this for yourself. How many times in life do you pass the people who help you out the most? The people who come out of the far corners of your life just when you need them the most and pack your parachutes for you? The people who go the extra mile, the people who don’t look for the kudos or the accolades or the achievement medal or even the bonus check—the folks who are just out there packing parachutes?

So here’s what I want to challenge you to do. Look around your organization for the people who might not be the ‘Top Guns’ of your organization, the loud and brazen leaders, but the ones who support the system that enables the Top Guns to fly. And if something goes wrong it will be because they did their job that no one gets hurt or a customer doesn’t go neglected.

This week find 5 parachute packers in your organization and tell them how much you appreciate them and how important are the things they do for the organization. Because, in the end, it might just be them who save your life or your business, or at least save the day.

After you have acknowledged your 5 people, I would love to hear about your experience. Please share them with the rest of us.

Share your thoughts, ideas and experiences in the comments below. Use the ‘Like’ and ‘Share’ buttons below too.

…Maybe that’s the problem.

Pursuing happiness is like chasing a rainbow. The faster we go, the harder we try, the farther off it becomes.

I have learned that happiness is not a pursuit— it’s a choice. Happiness is a state of mind, obtainable at any time, in any moment of your choosing.

Licking a cone of creamy vanilla Häagen-Dazs makes me happy. But if someone knocks the cone out of my hand, I’m no longer happy. Happiness can be fleeting and unstable, like that ice cream cone. It’s really just a temporary sensation of pleasure, like entertainment, shopping, eating or sex.

Our beliefs about what will make us happy are heavily influenced by other people, Hollywood or commercial media. We race along this “hedonic treadmill” perpetually feeling like something is missing, like happiness is one toy, one trinket or one promotion away, but

always just beyond our reach.

And still no rainbow.

Disappointing career choices, heartbreaking relationships and midlife crises indicate that our assumptions about happiness and the pursuit of it often miss the mark.

It’s not the pursuit of happiness we should concern ourselves with, but rather the pursuit of fulfillment, purpose and significance.

If I have created a life of meaning in which I have a deep sense of purpose and value, that won’t change because someone knocks my ice cream cone over. Fulfillment is a state of existence, not a fleeting emotion.

What then creates a fulfilling life?

That’s the all-important question you have to answer for yourself. In fact, it’s the subject of the classic tome Man’s Search for Meaning (which I recommend!) by psychiatrist and concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl. Typically a life of meaning requires deep relationships, a connection to a community, a sense of well-being, contribution to others and continual challenge, growth, learning and progress. Now those are some virtues worth pursuing. And once you start out on this pursuit, you will realize that crossing the finish line is not what’s most rewarding; the journey itself and the anticipation of achieving your goal is what’s so exhilarating and wonderful.

So what about being happy?

There are two ways you can choose to be happy at any moment.
One: Think about all you have to be grateful for. Some of the happiest people I have ever met are those who have comparatively few accoutrements to be happy about. When you feel gratitude, you cannot feel fear or worry at the same time. Gratitude washes it all away. If you are reading this, you’re breathing and above ground, so you have many blessings to be grateful for—just remind yourself at any moment you want to feel happy.

The second way to choose happiness—the best way, in my opinion—is to do something to make someone else happy. The person who bestows happiness always gets much more of it in return.

The June issue of SUCCESS is dedicated to the topic of happiness—what is it, how do you find it and how do you sustain it? An important enough of a discussion that we expanded the issue by an extra 20 pages (but same price!). And the CD in the issue is crammed with great content. We put my mentor Jim Rohn on it to address this important topic, as well as Deepak Chopra. There is also an excellent interview with the marketing guru Dan Kennedy on it. Don’t miss it.

I hope this issue of SUCCESS and this blog post not only brings you much happiness but also helps you in your pursuit of finding greater meaning, purpose and fulfillment in life.

How do YOU define happiness? We would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. ‘Share’ and ‘Like’ this post as well.

buy cheap viagraheight=”261″ />If I could reach out of this blog and hug you I would.
Consider this my virtual hug.

Let me attempt to explain why I am so grateful to you…
I have learned my highest values in life are significance and achievement.
Without you I could not express and realize those values each day.

I come by these values by nurture (or lack there of). Many of you might not know my early childhood story as I have only recently started to talk about it publically.

My parents divorced when I was only 18 months old. My mother didn’t want me so she gave me up to my father. In fact, I was told that when she first found out she was pregnant with me she got angry. After I was born she was generally disinterested and thankfully just handed me over to my dad.

My dad was only 24 years old at the time and a university football coach. He only knew how to parent like he coached—no whining, crying or excuses; lots of yelling, screaming and cursing. The best analogy is the experience was like being raised by Sergeant Gunnery of Full Metal Jacket. The way you got love and attention from my father was to do good, be good and achieve.

I am eternally grateful for this childhood as it instilled in me the desire to experience and express these two values:
Significance—wanting to feel significant by doing something important, meaningful, positive and contributing in the world that helps others feel empowered, important, capable and significant.
Achievement—my constant and never-ending drive for measurable improvement and achievement—for me and for those I serve: my readers, audience members, mentees and my virtually connected community.

Notice how YOU are in each of those two driving values. Without you, life, my purpose and the realization of my deep-seated passion is not possible.

So

on this occasion of Thanks Giving and everyday I get out of bed to search the world over to find the best ideas, insights and achievement strategies that will help you become more successful, happy and healthy—I thank you for that opportunity. And the best reward I get from you is to hear how your life has been improved because of it. You help me feel significant. THANK YOU.

Here are some other great Thanks Giving articles you might enjoy: read more »

cheapest cialis300.jpg” alt=”" width=”287″ height=”300″ />I want to issue you a challenge.

One that can make a profound difference on your year… and your life.

How do I know? Because it did on mine… and now hundreds of others (that I know about) who have emailed, posted on Facebook, tweeted or told me at an event how much this simple activity totally transformed their marriage, relationship with a child, parent, friend, boss or colleague.

Tomorrow (Aug. 24) is exactly 3mos until Thanksgiving 2011 (Nov. 24). If you start tomorrow (Friday at latest!), you can collect 90 days of thanks-giving thoughts about someone you care about… and then you can give them the collection of thoughts and gratitude on Thanksgiving Day. I promise that it will be one of the most special gifts they will ever receive.

Below is pulled directly from my book The Compound Effect

Thanksgiving Year-Round

It’s easy to point fingers at others, isn’t it? “I’m not getting ahead because of my lame boss.” “I would have gotten that promotion if it hadn’t been for that backstabbing co-worker.” “I’m always in a bad mood because my kids are driving me crazy.” And we’re particularly gifted in the finger-pointing department when it comes to our romantic relationships—you know, where the other person is the one who needs to change.

A few years back, a friend of mine was complaining about his wife. From my observation, she was a terrific lady, and he was lucky to have her. I told him as much, but he continued to point out all the ways she was responsible for his unhappiness. That’s when I shared an experience that had literally changed my marriage read more »

You can change your life with a single thought.

This one thought can:
• Create great wealth
• Restore health and even cure disease
• Unlock your greatest potential
• Forge and fortify deep abiding love
• Inspire great joy to the point of bliss

You’ve heard me explain before how the creation process produces every outcome in our lives:

We get out of LIFE what we CREATE. Simple enough, right? We are all creative beings. We all arrive the same – naked, scared and ignorant. What becomes of our lives from that point forward is what we create (or don’t create).

So what drives and determines our creation process?

EXPECTATION. You’ve heard the saying, “Expectation manifests into creation.” Thus, expectation determines what we create in our lives.

So what are we expecting? Why does one person have a different expectation than another? Our THOUGHTS drive our expectation. Whatever we’re thinking about becomes what we expect to happen. This is why the great self-improvement books have focused on the power of thoughts: THINK and Grow Rich, The Power of Positive THINKING, As a Man THINKeth, The Magic of THINKING Big, etc.

Of all the thoughts you experience and control, there is one that can profoundly transform your life on a daily basis. What is it? Gratitude.

See my special Thank You Gift for you below…

How does gratitude transform our lives?  

read more »