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 »

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.

I did a keynote presentation for a great company last week called Ingram Micro, a $300+ billion, Fortune 100 company. In my keynote, I discussed:

• How these are the most exciting and opportunity-rich times to be an entrepreneur in all of human history (why that is, statistically).

• How technology is leveling the playing field (redistributing the wealth) between big business and small business, disrupting status quos, control of distribution channels, and direct and immediate access to massive global consumer markets.

• How more “new wealthy” and new millionaires will be produced in the next 10 years than have been created in the last 110 years—combined.

I also talked about tuning out creative-spirit-crushing negative news media (as we’ve discussed in How to Change the World, Fuel for Growth, Info Power) and focusing instead on what is positive and right with the world—the abundance and prosperity, and the role models, mentors and people doing extraordinary things in the world today (a la SUCCESS magazine).

Afterward, in the lobby, an attendee asked me this question for clarification: read more »

No more whining, bitching, moaning, griping and complaining.

At a social function recently, 90 percent of the chitchat I heard were whimpers about the economy, how bad Obama is doing and how much the health care plan sucks, ad nauseam.

Finally, I had heard enough and I blurted out, “In the ‘80’s when the economy was booming, did you get rich?”

“Uh, well, no” answered the small crowd’s speaker.

“But Reagan was president and still you didn’t? What about when Clinton was President? He created a big national surplus, certainly you got rich then?”

“If you were standing in the healthcare haven of France right now, as you describe, would you be any healthier than you are now?”

Silence was his answer.

“Look”, I said, “stop worrying about the national economy and focus on your own economy. Don’t worry about who’s running the White House and concern yourself with running your house better. The only health care plan that matters is your health care plan…  for you.”

In my observation, it is just as easy to fail in a good economy as it is in a bad one. And it is just as easy to get rich in a bad economy as it is in a good one. Why? Because the economy has nothing to do with it.

I know many good, capable, smart and hardworking people who have been whacked by unexpected consequences of the economic winter we are in. It happens to the best of people even in the best of times.

Instead, start read more »

This month we want to help you take control of your life. When I was 18 years old, I was invited to a seminar that I believe really flipped on the light switch of my potential. That day, those ideas changed my life forever.

There is one idea in particular I’d like to pass on to you. The seminar topic was responsibility and accountability, and we were discussing relationships in particular. The question was asked, In a relationship, what is the percentage of shared responsibility in making the relationship work? I was 18, so of course I had all the answers, and I blurted out, “50/50!” The look on the instructor’s face made it evident that was incorrect. Someone else said 51/49, and explained you have to be willing to do just a little bit more than the other person. Someone else said 80/20. Finally, the instructor turned to the easel and wrote 100/0 and explained, “You have to be willing to give 100 percent with zero expectation of receiving anything in return. Only when you are willing to take 100 percent responsibility for making the relationship work, will it work. Otherwise, the relationship left to chance will always be vulnerable to disaster.” read more »