Tag Archives: success

“Success is a ladder that cannot be climbed with your hands in your pockets.”

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“Success is a ladder that cannot be climbed with your hands in your pockets.”
– Author Unknown

Image from Flickr by Travis Hornung

Image from Flickr by Travis Hornung

The spring and fall seasons here in Michigan require a “clean-up process” of leaves and other plant-related debris. This includes the need to climb up ladders and clear out the gutters on our roofs.

Imagine taking on this task and being told you had to leave your hands in your pockets as you climbed. Would you do it? Of course not!

Notice when, in your personal or professional life, you take on tasks half-heartedly, thereby leaving your hands in your pockets.

Exercise:

Where would grasping the ladder of success with both hands make the biggest difference for you today?

“Success in life comes not from holding a good hand but in playing a poor hand well.”

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“Success in life comes not from holding a good hand but in playing a poor hand well.”

– Denis Waitley, motivational speaker and writer

Have you ever watched the World Series of Poker on television – you know, where the winners walk away with millions? If you have, a notable thing about these tournaments is that the viewer actually gets to see all the cards of all the players.

Rarely does the winner always get the very best cards. Almost always, the winner is the person who makes the best of the cards they are dealt.

Exercise:

If your life was a game of poker, where your five cards included such areas as work, family, health, faith and community, how could you make the most of these to always have a winning hand?

#114: “Success is a journey, not a destination.”

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– Arthur Ashe, professional tennis player

To reach the end of our lives, at the very least, is to leave our physical world and perhaps enter a new level of existence. To some, the end of our lives is a more definitive end – death, with nothing beyond.

Life is one game I am not in a big hurry to finish. Taking pleasure in each step along this journey seems like a very good strategy.

How many people do you know who wish their lives away, by skipping steps in their journeys, by looking forward to the end of the work week, the end of the school year, or the opportunity to retire from a dead-end job?

Exercise:

How can you either change the game of your life, or shift your perspective, to make the most of each moment?

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#106: “There is a giant asleep within everyone. When that giant awakens, miracles happen.”

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– Frederick Faust, author

Is the giant within you fully asleep, taking a catnap, or just a bit drowsy these days?

What are some strategies to waken this giant to the status of full alert?

Consider the following ideas:

1. Identify the giants and leaders in your organization or community and practice similar behaviors.

2. Double your efforts on any worthwhile endeavor – and see what level of accomplishment results.

3. Cut the amount of time you give yourself to accomplish key tasks in half, to create greater urgency – and see what happens.

Exercise:

Send me your best ideas that you have used to create miracles in your professional and personal life. (Email me at barry@dempcoaching.com.)

Quotes are posted on The Quotable Coach a week after being sent out by email. To get the latest quotes straight to your inbox, pop your details in the sidebar to the right.

#82: “It is inevitable that some defeat will enter even the most victorious life.”

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“…The human spirit is never finished when it is defeated… it is finished when it surrenders.”

– Ben Stein, American writer, actor, economist and lawyer

With the 2012 Olympic Games now complete, we can all be inspired by many highlights. Among them are numerous examples of individuals who came up short in previous games, and returned after 4 – 8 years of work to achieve their goal.

Some examples include:

  • Brittney Reese, who won gold in the women’s long jump, after coming fifth in 2008
  • Sanya Richards-Ross, who won gold in the 400 meters, after winning bronze in 2008
  • Allyson Felix, who won gold in the 200 meters, after winning silver in 2004 and 2008

Someone once shared with me the phrase, “What stops people is that they stop.” In virtually all areas of life, we experience various degrees of defeat. When we surrender or stop in our efforts, our failures are final.

Exercise:

Where in your professional and personal life can you keep going and persist in your efforts, to achieve an even more victorious life?

Quotes are posted on The Quotable Coach a week after being sent out by email. To get the latest quotes straight to your inbox, pop your details in the sidebar to the right.

#81: “A man’s life is interesting primarily when he has failed…”

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“… I well know. For it’s a sign that he tried to surpass himself.”

– Georges Clemenceau, French journalist, physician and statesman

The 2012 Olympic Games recently ended. Each country, team and individual was highly focused on winning gold. What did it mean to the individuals who did not make it to the Olympics, or who did not make it through the preliminaries, the semi-finals, or stand on the podium with a medal?

This year’s Olympics had about 16,000 athletes for a world that contains over 7 billion people. How many medals were actually won and how many athletes, by the lack of a medal, “failed”?

Consider how many other athletes experience the great, often quiet, victories of achievement – of achieving their personal best.

Exercise:

What would be necessary for you to continually strive to surpass yourself?

What would be involved in achieving a “ten” in living? Or, to put it another way, what would you need to do to achieve a gold medal life?

Quotes are posted on The Quotable Coach a week after being sent out by email. To get the latest quotes straight to your inbox, pop your details in the sidebar to the right.

#80: “Just do what you do best.”

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– Red Auerbach, American basketball coach

As parents of two children in their mid-20s, my wife and I were always focused on their growth and development. From the moment they were born, “What will they become? How can we support their success?” were questions we often asked ourselves.

I believe that we, as parents, are caretakers of these young souls, for the purposes of both keeping them safe and secure, and exposing them to the world to discover their gifts and their talents through the various experiences and opportunities through their life journey.

Exercise:

To what extent are you and those closest to you doing what you do best?

What efforts can you make to further discover and express these unique abilities in the future?

Quotes are posted on The Quotable Coach a week after being sent out by email. To get the latest quotes straight to your inbox, pop your details in the sidebar to the right.

#17: “The most important single ingredient in the formula of success…”

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“…is knowing how to get along with people.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

What man or woman do you know who truly stood alone and had a successful life? Even the archetype of the rugged individual, John Galt in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, seems to be missing the vital component of community and quality relationships.

Quality relationships at home, work, and in our communities are a vital catalyst in making things work.

Exercise:

What do you observe when people do not have the ability or the desire to get along with others? What specific relationships in your world need your best efforts to create the shared successes you desire?

Quotes are posted on The Quotable Coach a week after being sent out by email. To get the latest quotes straight to your inbox, pop your email address in the sidebar to the right.

#15: “The road to success is always under construction.”

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– Lily Tomlin

I live in Michigan, where we joke about having two seasons: winter and construction. How can this pertain to life, where it’s all about learning, growing, and evolving? The aging process and entropy itself are seemingly designed to deconstruct us.

Imagine wearing a t-shirt that says “Under Construction”. What energies must we expend to move forwards instead of backwards? Our minds, our bodies, our communities – and yes, even our roads – can all benefit from putting up the orange barrels and letting the world know we’re under construction.

Exercise

What do you want to build in your life? What roads need to be maintained or created to help you on your way?

Quotes are posted on The Quotable Coach a week after being sent out by email. To get the latest quotes straight to your inbox, pop your email address in the sidebar to the right.