1. Inspiration – before you laugh, think about as a child when you didn’t get something right the first time… and you tried again… and again, each time the thought in your head was “I am going to get it right this time!” What better motivation do you need?

2. Humility – no one is perfect, though there are people who think they are. But, can you imagine a world where no one ever failed and we all walked around thinking we were God’s gift to the world?

3. Learning – Success makes you feel good, but failing teaches you a lesson. Think back to the first time you swung a bat, learned to walk, or tried to eat with a fork. Did you do it right the first time? I doubt it, did you figure out with each failure what you were doing wrong? Well, if you can swing a bat, walk and eat with a fork today (of course not all at once, lol), then I would guess you did.

It takes a lot of character and courage to continue to fail in order to achieve the greatness the Universe has in store for you. The more failures you have the more successes that will be coming your way. Remember to stay encouraged and always keep moving forward!

You didn’t, you simply assumed.

What’s Wrong With Assuming?

Simple, assumptions are not always true. They are only what you think they are. In reality your assumptions could result in many different endings. Who told you that your parents wouldn’t buy that toy for you? Or how did you know that person in high school would reject you? You tell yourself the things you want to believe. These assumptions can stand in the way of your true desires. Therefore, assumptions begin to create your reality.

Playing It On The Safe Side?

You may say, “My assumptions allow me to play it on the safe side, and prevent me from being disappointed.” But how will you get the things you desire if you are afraid to take risks? Your parents may have bought that toy, or your high school crush could’ve went on a date with you. All you needed to do was: Take a risk and/or ask!

Start taking risks today; be brave enough to ask those tough questions. You’ll be surprised at the positive responses you get. Even if you do get a rejection, brush it off and keep moving forward.

In the long run, you’ll be grateful that you took control over your life and no longer allowed your assumptions to hinder your dreams.

When your wife asks you a dozen times as to what time you will be home, she’s simply asking – it’s you who gets annoyed thinking that she is nagging. Or perhaps your husband tells you that he’ll be home late. He’s simply letting you know – it’s you who gets annoyed thinking that he just wants to hang late with the boys.

It’s always you who controls what annoys and irritates you; no one else. It’s your choice to allow someone to ‘push your buttons’. You allow yourself to be irritated by somebody who shouldn’t have that power. You let them take control, and steal that good mood from you.

When you let someone push your buttons, it’s because you choose to let them. It’s your choice that you let them control your mood. You have no one to blame but yourself. When you no longer allow anyone to snatch your happiness or joy from you, then you’re truly in control of your reality. You will begin to feel good and confident about yourself and your life.

Stay away from those who bring you down, and start to be happy on your own and with others who have good characteristics which you want to adopt.

I’ve found a good exercise that will allow you to use the positive feelings you have from being grateful to attract specific things that you want.

1. I Am Grateful For… Write down two or three things that you are already grateful for. For example: I am grateful for my health, my family, and my career. Go into detail about why you are grateful for each of these things.
2. Visualize Think about what you are grateful you for and feel happy about having these things. For example: Close your eyes and truly see yourself healthy and happy with your family and why you appreciate them. Focus and hold on to that fuzzy happy feeling, let a smile come across your face.
3. Feel In The Present Moment Write down one thing that you want that you don’t currently have, and feel that same feeling of gratitude as if it is already yours. For example: You may want a promotion at work,  imagine being promoted right now. How does it make you feel at this present moment to be promoted? What are you going to be able to do with the extra money, time or perks? Focus and hold on to that positive feeling. Feel grateful and happy about this promotion in the same way you’re grateful for the position you already possess.
4. Repeat Continue to repeat this pattern – focus on two or three things that you are happy you currently have, and then focus on one thing that you want.

Be Grateful You Are Living the Law of Attraction

This is living the Law of Attraction: using the feeling of gratitude to bring into your life more things to be grateful for.  Try to blur the line between things that you have now, and the things that you desire.  The universe responds to the way you feel about things.  If you can feel happy about things that you want to attract, by law they must be delivered to you.

You can call them what you want:

• Baggage
• Routines
• Patterns
• …even addictions

They all boil down to the same thing…

Doing unproductive things over and over again.

Unfortunately, when we hear things like “bad habit” or “addiction” we immediately think the worst.  Like a substance abuser or something similar.

A bad habit could be as simple as not balancing your checkbook after EVERY check. This isn’t life threatening, but it IS a bad habit that can prevent you from achieving the financial goals you may have for yourself.

Here’s the funny things about bad habits:

They are so ingrained into what we do, they almost become a part of who we are…so much so that we don’t recognize them when they’re there.

Here’s the best way to determine if you have any “bad” habits in your life:

Are you living the life you want?

If not, you’ve got “BAD HABITS”!!!

These bad habits are keeping you from being the person you want to be and to have
the things you want to have.

So next you may be wondering “Well how do I break these ‘bad habits’?”

It’s simple follow these steps:

1. Figure out what’s the Payoff

-Why do you do this negative thing, what do you get out of it?
Example: If you procrastinate maybe it gives you the opportunity to put that thing off and not think about it right now because you would rather do something more enjoyable.

2. Figure out what’s the Trade Off

-What is it that your losing by doing this negative thing repetitively?
Example: Procrastination makes you irresponsible and unable to get things done in a timely matter, it also creates stress around trying to complete things at the last minute, if it gets done at all.

3. Make a choice

-Now you know your Payoff and Trade Off which do you put more value on, which do you actively choose?
Example: Would you rather procrastinate for the temporary satisfaction of doing something else with that time or make sure your responsibilities are completed in a timely manner with less stress, especially since it’s something you will have to do anyway?

4. Create Better Behaviors

-You created these “bad habits” to fill a need, now find a better way to fulfill this need without feeling bad about yourself.
Example: Taking care of your responsibilities without procrastinating will make you feel good about completing them with less stress and time to spare. This will also help you move in a positive direction with regards to reaching your goals. You will then have more time and money to do the things you enjoy doing.

Now it’s up to you, if you feel yourself reverting back to those “bad habits” think about what you are choosing. Make the choice that helps you move toward becoming who you want to become and having the lifestyle you want to have.

Antonio,

P.S. The reason why I say it’s a “good thing” that some people got
offended is that those are usually the people who need this the most

Click here to “Break Any Habit” and live the life you want NOW!!

So, I admit…I’m an addict.

I’m addicted to what I do for a living…speaking, coaching, business and marketing.

I just ran across a file I use to store all my domain information.

I own over 300 websites.

A couple of years ago I had over 500, but in 2006 I decided to “cut back” to 200…but now, within a year’s time, I’m up 100 again…to over 300 now.

Why do I have so many domains?

I’m addicted to the ideas behind buying them.

For example, I was sitting here one day I had an idea about how to calculate how much a person would need to earn per hour to make their target income for a year…based on the number of hours they wanted to work… (http://www.howmuchperhour.com)

I grabbed a domain name, put the site up in about an hour and told 4 friends about it…three weeks later the site was getting 5-10 visitors per day. That’s not “a lot” of traffic, but it’s a whole lot for doing NO promotion at all. The site is making me about $50 per month with no work, so it ‘seems like it’s worth it’.

The only problem is that making money from the site is feeding the addiction.

A couple weeks ago, I went to shoot some pool… no harm there right?

Well, I noticed the pool tables were a little dirty and my mind instantly went into developing the idea of creating self-cleaning cue balls. I went in to thinking about what the balls would have to be coated with to clean the table but also keep the integrity of a standard cue ball to not negatively impact play of the game. I even started thinking of the marketing slogans and how to sell the cue balls. I thought a good name would be “Clean Shoot” or “Clean Play”… or something like that.

Now, before you ask, “Antonio… so, what’s the problem?” I’m not implying that there is any problem per se. However, based on the definition of addict, it appears I am addicted to coming up with (and acting on) business ideas.

On the surface this could be a great thing, but I can’t seem to turn it off. As the definition says, I feel I’m psychologically dependent on this activity.

I don’t label this as a “bad” thing…and I don’t compare myself to an alcoholic or drug addict. However, I do feel it can lead to life disruption.
For instance: alcohol by itself isn’t a “bad thing…neither is marijuana…it’s the addiction to these things that causes problems in most people’s lives.

So, what I’m doing now is determining what impact this addiction is having on my life to see what adjustments I may need to make.

Yes, it’s very fortunate that my ‘addiction’ makes me money instead of causing me to spend it…but addiction to ANYTHING needs to be monitored.

A client of mine discovered that she’s addicted to pain (emotional). She causes hurt for herself in almost every way possible…men choices, job choices, etc… so now she’s able to see that she is the cause of her suffering, not the people and things around her.

I asked her if she could do anything she wanted to do all day, what would it be? After a lot of cajoling and wrestling, she finally admitted that she likes sewing, traveling, creating things with her hands and a few other (personal) things that I won’t mention here.

I asked her why she was working in the profession she was and she said, “I thought that I was supposed to be doing this”. She went on to say that she thought work was supposed to hard, boring, burdensome, etc… If she was having too much fun, then she was ‘doing something bad’.

WOW

We discovered that the ‘addiction’ to pain and suffering was ‘taught’ to her by her mother. Her mom drilled into her head that “life isn’t easy” and “if you’re not working hard (and suffering) then you’re lazy and “not worthy” of anything.

So, she believed that and over the years, she became addicted to pain to the point that she (subconsciously, but purposefully) found pain to inflict on herself. She took jobs she KNEW she would hate, she dated guys she KNEW were horrible… but she couldn’t figure out why she was doing that until now.

What addictions do you have in your life?

They may be obvious…or you may have to dig deep to find them.

Find out how they’re impacting your life and decide if you want to continue with the addiction or make the change in your life. Though we sometimes don’t feel like it is…but addiction IS a choice. We choose that thing to give our power to.

If you don’t want it to have power over you anymore, CHOOSE THAT

Practical Application

Things to ask yourself about potential ‘addictions’ in your life:

Why am I doing this? (In my case I have to ask: Is this inspired action or addicted behavior?)

Do I want to be doing this or do I feel like I have to

Is this getting me closer to my life goals?

These few questions will let you know if you’re dealing with some type of addiction or not. Then you can CHOOSE what you want for your life.

Helpful tip: Find a friend you can count on to help you in your process.

Note: This post is not intended to substitute professional medical help. If you’re suffering from an addiction, please consider an addiction hotline or other professional help.

But then hours…sometimes DAYS go by and it hits me like a Mac Truck.

A few weeks ago, I read a really interesting post by Catherine Franz about how to see “want” isn’t true. Initially, I thought the blog title was misspelled, so I overlooked it and didn’t “get it”.

But, I was driving down the street the other day and the it really hit me.

I can’t really can’t explain the point here…because you won’t be able to “get it”. Like I did. Take a look at it and let me know your thoughts…it should only take you about 5 mins to read… and no, you don’t have to read 300 words per minute

I’m just left Philly, doing a business mastermind session and I was told on a couple of occasions that, I was acting “uncharacteristically aggressive”.

One person even went as far as saying, “If I didn’t know any better, I wouldn’t know you weren’t from Philly.

Hmm…uncharacteristically aggressive… in other words: “mean”.

That was funny to me…because a few days prior, I was caught saying, “The people here are really mean…even wen they’re being nice to each other, they’re being mean.”

I said this as a result of an incident I had in Philly:

I was in a car where the driver was letting a person cross the street…the driver told the guy to cross, then the guy told the driver to go…eventually, they got into a shouting match about who should pass first. Geez

The very same day, I was in a funeral procession and the person in the car with me nearly got into a fist fight with another driver because they almost cut us off (reminder: this was during a funeral)

Of course “people in Philly” aren’t mean… that was just my limited perception at the time.

However, it made me think about a conversation I had a few weeks ago about how people from the North East (New York, Jersey, Philly, etc) seem to be more “aggressive” that people in the South.

Disclaimer: If you’re from the NE, please don’t get mad at me…because the conversation was actually started by a guy from NY who said, “Why are people in Georgia so nice? It’s really weird, and freaking me out.” Go figure, “nice” freaks someone out.

So, in the conversation we were talking about what factors impact the makeup of a city, a community and ultimately the individual. We talked about the weather, the politics, the income per capita, etc. Even one woman talked about the energy of the Earth in those areas.

Whatever the reason, the one common theme is that people allow themselves to be influenced. (going back to my favorite word – choice).

They’re choosing to be influenced.

This is one of the reasons why most smokers’ children are smokers; abusers’ children are abusers, etc.

No one HAS to act like their parents, no one HAS to behave like their neighbors… it’s a choice.

Though sometimes we have to adjust ourselves to ‘fit into’ situations…meaning: you probably don’t talk to your friends like you talk to your mother …and vice-versa… we can still choose to be who we are.

After recognizing how ‘aggressive’ I was being, I chose not to continue acting that way because it wasn’t serving me.

Practical Application

Take some time to identify what areas you’re allowing your environment to influence you.

Ask yourself why you’re doing it. Is this how you “really” want to act? Is this getting you closer to your life goals?

CHOOSE to be YOU…not your parents or neighbors

About 2 years ago, a guy heard the audio and was impressed with the information I provided on the audio. He Google’d me, found one my websites, then bought one of my products.

Just 1 month ago he ended up attending the event I did in Ohio… and now he’s a $2,000 coaching client.

The intention I had for creating the audio was to help others and show myself as knowledgeable in the area of the audio program but the situation didn’t turn out that way at that time.

However, YEARS later it’s turned into a much better opportunity for me AND a cool story to add to my next book.

Practical Application

Focus on keeping your intentions ‘pure’ and don’t allow temporary setbacks to get you off track. The universe knows what it’s doing — every time. Sometimes timing isn’t what we think it should be but everything ALWAYS happens when it should and as it should.

EVERYTHING you do is cause.

Therefore it WILL have an EFFECT.

It’s the law and you can’t get around it, no matter how sneaky, under the radar you do it…you can’t beat it.

Even though you may think it’s a small thing, anything you do that is a negative energy action, WILL have an effect on you.

Some things to consider:

Many people think it’s OK to do things if they don’t get caught. You’re caught before you do it! Even if no one else knows about it…you know, your mind knows, the universe knows that you put the cause out, and you will attract the effect.

Practical Application

Look at your actions over a few days. How many things do you do that aren’t in alignment with the things you want for yourself, but you consider ok because no one is “hurt”, or no one knows?

Consider the negative energy you are sending out into the universe because of these little things.

Do you really want the effect that you are going to receive from that?