1.2.1.11 Your focus today is your future tomorrow
I was once in Canberra, the Australian national capital, at a speaking engagement with over 1,700 young people when a very gothic-looking girl came up to me. She was wearing black from head to foot, her face was painted white and she just looked generally weird. She spoke to me in a gravelly kind of voice: “Can I talk to you?”
I have to admit that she freaked me right out! Sure! Which one of you wants to talk first? I thought to myself. She showed me her arms and I was horrified—they were cut and slashed all over. It turned out that this girl, Victoria, had been sexually molested between the ages of seven and 17. She was a mess, but she had a dream. Victoria became involved in our drug and alcohol rehabilitation organization and went on to help over 70 girls graduate from our program. Today she is a very successful businesswoman. What changed? She had a dream and she got past her past.
Where your focus is today, your future is tomorrow. Don’t put an emphasis on your past failures and regrets unless you intend to live there. Your mistakes are an event, they are not a permanent condition. Everything you need for your future is in embryonic form in your hand today. What do you have in your hand right now? What a tragedy when people constantly whinge about what they don’t have or what has been taken from them. How sad when people lament their losses, rather than celebrate what they have. People mourn the loss of innocence at a young age, or a lost relationship, lost money, lost houses or lost businesses. My friend, you can’t do a thing about what has been taken from you, but you can do something about whatever it is that you have in your hand right now.
Business owners complain about not having the staff they would like to have, rather than focusing on improving the staff they do have. People complain about not having enough money and talk about what they would be able to do if they had more, rather than doing something constructive with whatever they have right now. It’s not what has been taken from you that counts, it’s what you do with what you have left over.
Many years ago, one of my closest friends, an honorable man of great integrity, suffered a great injustice through bad information given to him by an accounting firm. It caused him incredible hardship, cost him millions of dollars, and left him bankrupt. As the disaster unfolded, I watched his partners become bitter, disgruntled men. Yet my friend continued to stand tall. He went to his creditors and told them he would pay them everything they were owed. But his partners refused to be involved in any repayment to the creditors. It has been amazing to watch this man resurrect his finances from out of the ashes. How did he do it? He took the little he had left and invested it in knowledge and a new business venture. He realized that what was taken from him didn’t matter as much as what he did with what he had left over. Today he is one of the largest franchise owners in Australia and just recently took over the worldwide rights of his ever-expanding franchise business.
Zig Ziglar once said, “Optimists are people who, when they wear out their shoes, just figure they are back on their feet.” Robert Schuller talks about the ‘glass half full/glass half empty’ distinction between an optimist and a pessimist. The optimist pours water into the glass, while the pessimist pours water out of the glass. One looks at what he can put in, the other at what has been taken out. If all you look at is what has been taken out instead of at what is in the glass, then that becomes a dominant mindset in your life and prosperity will not flow.
The millionaire mindset makes failure a teacher
The person who refuses to prosper and who constantly looks at what is taken from him makes failure his undertaker. But the millionaire mindset makes failure a teacher. Which will you be? There is a story about a young man who was involved in an oil venture. He eventually ran out of money and sold his interests to his partners. After a lot of time, energy and effort, they finally received a breakthrough and hit a gusher. The company is known today as CITGO. The young man who withdrew later got involved in the clothing business. That turned out worse than his oil venture. It seemed as though a lot had been taken from him. Certainly he had lost a lot; in fact, the man was flat broke. He had a lot to complain about. Yet rather than be discouraged about what he had lost, he became involved in politics.
Over the years since, historians have had many wonderful things to say about the great US President, Harry S. Truman. This two-time failure kept his focus on what he had in him that he could use, not on what had been taken from him. Harry S. Truman became the thirty-third President of the United States not by virtue of what was taken from him, but through what he did with what was left over.
Adversity causes some people to break, but others to break records. Take, for example, the great American athlete, Jesse Owens, who absolutely destroyed the plans of Adolf Hitler with his incredible ability on the Olympics athletics track. It was discovered that the reason for his success was an incredible sickness he suffered that caused him to run faster. Then there’s the amazing cyclist Lance Armstrong, who fought testicular cancer and yet went on to win the grueling Tour de France seven times.
Make plans to succeed, not to wallow in your loss.
The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence
Anyone who wants to prosper and increase, to flourish and advance, must consider what they have now and work on that. Those who are condemned to failure are those who complain about what they have lost, what could have been, might have been or should have been. Such complaining is pointless; it is energy draining and a prosperity thief. If a person’s mentality throws up excuses that they were not brought up correctly, or that they would have been a lot better off if only they’d inherited at least a small amount of wealth to build on, then that person is deceived. Eighty percent of America’s millionaires are first generation rich. Two-thirds of them are self-employed; they did not inherit opportunity, they created it from what they had. Napoleon Hill once said, “The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans, new opportunities to take the place of those that fail.”
When you have lost something, stop dwelling on the loss and leverage it to springboard you into a better future. Make plans to succeed, not to wallow in your loss. “But I’m dysfunctional,” you may say. Others may say, “I’ve had my heart broken!” or “I’ve had a breakdown!” Welcome to the human race, my friend.
Everybody has baggage. Everyone has made mistakes. Everyone has been hurt or treated badly at one time or another. If you’ve messed up or if someone has messed you up at any time in your life, then you are the perfect candidate for success.
Get over it… please!
You’ve got to get over your past. People are so concerned about their past failures—about having fallen off the ladder of life and making a mess of things—that they just don’t try. I’ve often said that if Humpty Dumpty knew he was an egg, he would never have climbed the wall. My advice to you is to climb it anyway! Get back up on that ladder! Have a go! Climb to another level! Rise to the top! And if you fall, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men will put you back together again. Just keep climbing.
Here is some shocking news: Nobody comes from a functional home. Everybody has some kind of dysfunctional background. We are all, in one way or another, victims of dysfunction. But past mistakes, hurts, fears and failures should be the springboard to your future success. You will learn more from the tragedies of your past than you will ever learn through the good times. You have to get over your past, become bigger than your past, and not dwell in your disappointment about the past. Your prosperity quotient has to be bigger than your disappointment quotient.
Many people get stuck in the past because they are continually looking in the rear vision mirror of their life. You cannot go forward while you are constantly looking backwards. It’s like the elephant at the circus. This huge beast is held captive by a small rope and a little stake in the ground. How? Because when the elephant was a baby with very little strength, the circus trainers tied a tiny rope around its ankle and attached the other end to a stake in the ground to keep it from roaming. The elephant never forgets that the stake and the rope prevent it from moving away. Even though it could easily break free, the adult elephant remains a prisoner of its past. What’s your stake in the ground? What’s in your past that is holding you captive?
Past adversity is often the window of opportunity
Winston Churchill made this great observation: “Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.” Past adversity is often the window of opportunity for change and betterment. The mind is a filter that enables us to see things. Life is not as it happens; life is how you perceive it. Many people don’t prosper because of perceptions based on the past. Other people are able to use the past for their advancement, in spite of tragedy, pain, horror or nightmares from childhood, business dealings or relationships. What makes the difference? The difference is perception. Some people bury the past and move on, other people keep resurrecting a dead corpse. Painful pasts make great building materials for incredible towers of prosperity.
The late Reverend Ross W. Marrs once said this: “Take away my ability to fail and I would not know the meaning of success. Let me be immune to rejection and heartbreak and I could not know the glory of living.” Think about that! If you take away the ability to fail, the ability to feel rejection, if you inoculate yourself against heartache and heartbreak, then how are you ever going to become a bigger person?
Painful pasts make great building materials for incredible towers of prosperity.
A few years ago, a friend of mine decided to climb Mount Everest without artificial oxygen. This is what he said to me afterwards: “Pat, the higher I went up that mountain, the less weight I could carry in my knapsack. I got to a point where I went through my knapsack and found my toothbrush and cut the handle off it because all I needed was the head of the toothbrush—I didn’t need the excess baggage.” He said, “There are some things you just cannot take with you to the top.” Don’t be comfortable with old problems, be committed to new solutions and prosperity.
It’s not only our negative past experiences that can hold us back. There are two kinds of memories in life: good ones and bad ones. And both kinds of memory ruin prosperity. I love this quote from Walt Disney: “I don’t like to repeat success, I like to go on to bigger and better things.” What a brilliant statement! Bad memories are like chains around our ankles that hinder us from moving forward. Good memories can become hammocks in which we rest.
CHALLENGE: Get over your past and move on
My friend, stop right now and ask yourself this question: What’s in your past that may be holding you captive? People may have said negative things about you. You may have experienced failures both personally and professionally. But you need to recognize that if you want to go all the way in life, you’ve got to be prepared to leave the past behind. Only then can you begin to create your future. You see, there are some things you just can’t take with you on your journey towards success.
To see prosperity in every area of your life, use the past as building blocks for your advancement. Bury the past and move on. A prosperous person cannot dwell on the past.