Last week we started a journey together through Maslow’s 8-Ways to Self-Actualize with my supplemented editorial and action steps to help you actually actualize Maslow’s principles.

We traversed through the first 4-steps so far. Many of your realizations and mental breakthroughs mentioned in the comments were very inspiring. Just reading them made me want to step up my game last week. Thank you!

This week we will complete the journey with steps 5 – 8. Imagine this as your climb of Mount Everest (the peak of your potential) and you have made it all the way to Camp IV (you’ve mastered Maslow’s steps 1 – 4). Now you have what is called “The Final Push” left to go to “summit” the mountain. Well, Maslow’s steps 5 – 8 are your Final Push. Let’s go!

5. Listen to your own tastes. Be prepared to be unpopular.

This one comes naturally to me. I am an anti-conformist by nature. I recommend it to you as well. One of the greatest strengths of leadership is the willingness to do what is unpopular. (Read: The Unpopular View of Leadership)

Don’t follow the herd. Don’t do what’s fashionable, trendy or popular. What’s popular is what’s common. Do what’s common and you will get common results (aka mediocrity). You are looking for uncommon outcomes, extraordinary achievements.

To do this you will have to do what Jim Rohn talked to us about—walk away from the 97%.

Don’t use their vocabulary and don’t use their excuses. Don’t use their method of drift and neglect. Walk away and join the 3%. Take charge of your own life.

Action step: read more »

Friday is the 80th birthday of my mentor, the late Jim Rohn. It is cause for me to pause one more time to offer gratitude for the profound influence this man had on my life (and the lives of millions of others).

I met Jim when I walked into his seminar back in 1994. I wasn’t even there to meet or hear Jim. I was there to meet the promoters of the event. I needed to wait until the event was over so I sat down and listened to this willowy grey haired man with the most fascinating voice and intonations lecture about principles of success.

What he said riveted me. The simplicity and purity of his message grabbed my heart. And his teachings challenged and confronted my previous beliefs about obtaining success.

I just pulled off my library shelf the journal I had with me that day. In my notes are a few things Jim said that I wrote down, underlined and circled. Those few things forever changed my life.

In honor of Jim’s birthday I’d like to pass forward the gift of those words on to you…

Jim Rohn asked the audience, “How many people want more…?”

I thought, “Yes! I want more… success, money, a better body, more companionship, etc. (I was 23!)” and awaited the instructions of what to do…

I had experienced some moderate success already by that time, but I had done it through sheer brute force. I was aggressive and just outworked, out failed and out persisted everyone else to grab my achievements. I did it by doing… do, do, do. But what Jim said next would multiply my income, my goal achievement and my results… and it wasn’t by doing.

Jim continued, “If you want to have more… you have to BECOME more.” He said, “Success is not a doing process, it is a becoming process. What you do, what you pursue, will allude you—it can be like chasing butterflies. Success is something you attract by the person you become.”

“Wow,” I thought. This was the first time I had heard this twist of perspective, insight and wisdom.

Jim continued, 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 »

I saw something absurd the other day. A highly engineered and specially designed high-performance race car stuck on a 35-mile-an-hour downtown street.

That is not what that car was made for. That is not what its creator (Enzo Ferrari) envisioned for it.

This 6-speed, F140 Aluminum V12, 4700cc engine with 660hp was built to go 0-60 in 3.8 seconds and race at 217 miles an hour (2010 specs). But here it is… stuck.

I see this absurdity every day.

But not only in the streets—in office cubicles, conference rooms, huddled behind computer screens, and dragging luggage through airports.

People who were specially engineered and designed with special talents, skills and abilities who are traveling down the wrong road, with their potential stuck in first gear; trapped and unable to race.

That is not what their creator had envisioned for them either.

Are you…

1. Stuck. Traveling down the wrong road? Are you in a job, company or business that has you boxed in on the slow lane? Is it keeping you from being able to get out of first gear and challenge your greater abilities?

Sometimes it’s not the car; it’s the road the car is on.

2. Traveling with Pintos? Are you going slow because you are keeping pace with ordinary cars, when you were designed for racing?

Sometimes it’s not the car; it’s the cars it travels with.

3. Are you even aware that you are a race car? You were specially engineered and designed for speed… to race. You were built for greatness. I’m not kidding. You are a miracle of machinery. Yes, you… the one reading this. It’s likely you have never even experienced half of what your top speed is.

Sometimes it’s not the car; it’s the one given the responsibility to drive it.

If you ever really gripped the wheel, braced your neck and punched the pedal with all your might… the awesomeness of your innate potential will shock and exhilarate you.

Punch it. NOW!

Who else do you know has greater innate potential than they might realize or be utilizing? Forward this post to them: http://darrenhardy.success.com/2010/07/are-you-stuck/

So, are you stuck? Are you on the wrong road, traveling with the wrong people, unaware of your true greatness? In the comments below share with everyone what you are going to do to “punch it” in your life, starting now.

Last week my wife “crossed over.” She closed the door to her 30s and strode gracefully into her 40s.

Curious what life is like on “the other side,” since I am still a mere adolescent in my 30s (for eight more months), I asked her what newfound wisdom she has gathered from the many best wishes messages, cards and conversations she has had with those already living in “the beyond.”

I was so intrigued and inspired by her discoveries, I asked her if she would share her collected pearls of wisdom with you here on this blog. She agreed (if I washed her car—she’s a tough negotiator!).

Advice from the ‘Other Side’ by Georgia Hardy

If I had a nickel for every time someone told me that “life begins at 40,” I could buy the world a martini. I just crossed a very important threshold in my life and spent the most glorious 40th birthday celebration weekend with my most cherished friends and family. And though there was a wide range of ages and generations represented, many of them told me similar things about being 40 and how “life happens” in one’s 40s.

What does this mean? Does this mean that I haven’t really been living? Does it mean that my 20s and 30s were just dress rehearsals for my grand 40s? Well, I asked these very questions, and though the responses were varied, they were all very interesting.

Imperfection Is Perfect

In a conversation with my friend Valerie, she shared two important realizations that have made a difference in her life. First, she described transitioning into her 40s as a sort of read more »