Lesson 1 of 10 Life Lessons on How to Find Your Why NOW & Achieve Ultimate Success

Lesson 1The Most Important Day of Your Life

As life goes on day by day, we all experience challenging days and some really magnificent days, but there’s one day in particular that is more important than any other day of your life. The most important day of your life is your birthday.

Why? At birth, we all start out the same. We are all on equal playing ground. Yes, I know we’re all born into different external circumstances, but your birth certificate gives you the right to grow up and become a Champion. Your birth certificate is your Certificate of Life. Unlike a college degree, you automatically earn your Certificate of Life when you exit the womb. No questions asked . . . you are destined for success.

Sounds easy, but that’s where most people fall through the cracks. Even equipped with this wonderful certificate that gives them the right to achieve miracles and become a Champion, many fail to do so. Why? They simply don’t take the action that makes their success possible. Let me give you an example. It’s like someone that has been given a million dollar trust at birth, but they never write the check to unlock the funds. Now, does that make sense? No, but neither does having a Certificate of Life that enables you to create miracles and then you simply choose not to use it. You and only you are ultimately responsible for your level of success or failure in life.

Your mind and your heart are like a parachute. There’s only one way that they work – they must be open! An open mind and an open heart will allow the dream inside of you that develops throughout your life to become a reality. Your birth certificate (aka your Certificate of Life) gives you the right to achieve your dreams. From the moment of your birth, you are destined for massive success, monumental prosperity and an incredible amount of unbelievable results in your life. But, you control the chances of when or how or if that will happen.

Once again, every single person has the same starting point in life. It’s guaranteed! It’s not a 60-day, 90-day, 120-day or even a 60,000 mile guarantee. It is a lifetime guarantee! You are guaranteed at birth that you have the same ability to achieve success as everyone else. Your race, your gender and/or your physical handicaps don’t matter. It’s simply your decision of whether or not you achieve this success. Remember, Champions make decisions and decisions make Champions.

You are Not a Victim!

Let me explain what I mean here. We live in an age of victimization. We’ve been trained to think and live as victims. Our whole culture is saturated with messages that “you cannot achieve because . . .” Some see themselves as victims of ethnicity, gender, being born into a low-income family , vast conspiracies, etc. If you regularly watch the evening news or brainwash yourself with other forms of negative, popular culture, then that victim mentality will become ingrained in your mind. That’s why I advise people to avoid those messages and watch movies like “Cinderella Man” that reinforce the positive aspects of life and make you believe that you can achieve success despite the challenges that you face.

Victimization is a lie! Notice how victimization always relates to people as groups, but you and I are individuals. We are not groups! That’s how the lie gets instilled. When you see yourself as part of a group (racial, economic, social, religious, etc.), then you begin to see your destiny as something that is out of your own hands. You jump on the bandwagon of failure, because you think that your future is already written according to the lives of others. That kind of deception keeps people from taking responsibility for and ownership of their own destiny.

Just Do It!

You are an individual created by God and given a wide open path to success. Take your birth certificate as a Certificate of Life that gives you as an individual the permission and the right to be successful.

Now, stand up and say out loud, “I am a certified champion by birthright. My certificate of life gives me the right to achieve success.” Say it again, but this time say it with true conviction. Say it with power and genuine belief that you know it is true! You must believe before you can achieve. Go ahead. Say it over and over and over until you do believe that you can achieve massive results in your life.

When Jesus was in his earthly ministry, he often told people to do outrageous things. For example, he told his disciples to catch a fish and cut it open in order to find the money to pay taxes. Another time, he told them to go borrow a donkey. He also instructed a blind man to go wash in a particular pool of water to regain his sight. Would you say those are outrageous actions? Why did he do those things? Because he knew that when people actually do outrageous things, they unlock a dimension of power with themselves that they didn’t even know existed.

This kind of power created by taking action blows the doors off the prison of passivity. Taking bold action is explosive power! It will often take us from a “do nothing” realm onto the higher ground of action, engagement and success. That’s the reason that I often ask people to take specific action steps. As long as we just merely think, feel or believe, we remain passive. There’s no action in thinking, feeling and believing. Have you ever been in a situation when you really want to do something that you know will change your life, but you think “Oh, that would be silly to do that. I’m not going to embarrass myself. What would people think of me?” As long as you let those types of feelings and beliefs control your ability to act on something, you will remain in a prison of doubt and fear.

But when you take action and do something that you know will make a difference in your life, a new realm of power begins to work inside of you.Throughout the journey of this book, I will ask you to take action steps like standing up, speaking words out loud and writing down specific exercises. I like the old Nike advertising line: “Just do it.” Trust me. There is a great and priceless value associated with just doing it without over-thinking it.

WARNING: I will challenge you to get out of your comfort zone, and this will make you uncomfortable at times. But no matter what, you must commit to completing all exercises and get beyond passivity and embarrassment. Once you learn to do that, nothing will be able to stop you from taking the action needed to achieve your dreams in life.

Once more, I want you to say out loud, “I am committed to my success!” Do you believe that? Say it over and over and over until you DO believe it. If you cannot do that, then you will not succeed. Don’t go any further in your reading until you have made this commitment to yourself!

Time to Use Your “Certificate of Life”

Now, I’m going to ask you to do something else. Go get a copy of your birth certificate, laminate it and put it on your desk (or the dashboard of your car, the cockpit of your plane or any other work site). I like to call your work area “the construction zone.” Why? Because you are going to BUILD your future there!

We will even develop blueprints along the journey that will lead to your future success. It’s like building a skyscraper. There is a starting point for the visionary architect. He must know the purpose, style, height and other dimensions of the building and what supplies will be needed in the construction. Well guess what? Your birth certificate is your starting point. So, let’s take action and begin building your future. You will look at your birth certificate everyday and remember that you are an individual not a group and that you have the right to be successful in every area of your life.Decision plus action equals results. We need to recreate the daily process that creates your results. Every day is a phenomenal day. That’s why it’s called the present. You must treat everyday like a present, and open it with great expectation. Live each day as if it’s a precious gift, because it is! Don’t proceed any further with your reading until you have your Certificate of Life in front of you so that you see it every day. It serves as a reminder that you can and will achieve monumental success.

Re-Program Your Life!

Now that you have your Certificate of Life in front of you, I want you to look at it and say, “It’s all my fault.” That’s right. Your life is your fault – good or bad. I can almost hear the chorus of readers now: “What do you mean, John? Why would you tell me that it’s all my fault?” Okay, okay, it’s actually your default.

Let me explain. As many of you know, I have a New York accent. I have a New York accent, because I grew up around New Yorkers. From the date of your birth until approximately the age of seven, your default in life is developed. Yes, it’s a little confusing at first so let me explain further.
When you purchase a computer, it comes with certain programs that give it the ability to function when you turn it on. After you boot up, you choose new software , your internet provider and other technical features in order to make it suitable for you. But unless you successfully install and save your new software , your computer will always revert back to those original default settings. That is, unless you make a decision to change those defaults by saving your new programs.

By the age of seven, your mental computer has all of its defaults developed and installed on your hard drive. Think about that. How many times were you told as a young child, “Stop. Don’t do that. Don’t touch that. Don’t talk to strangers. Stay away from them. Don’t look at that. Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t?”

You are told don’t, do not, and stop about 17 million times versus the word “yes.” This default is not only installed by your parents as a young child, but also your grandparents, relatives, babysitters, teachers, friends and anyone else that you may have spent time with growing up.

Your default setting creates doubt instead of hope for a successful future. So when it comes to a decisive stage in your life and you step out in faith , you must understand that you are challenging your default. How do you change this? Just like you make changes to a computer so that it’s more suitable for your individual purposes, you must “install and save” new mental software in order to change your old default settings.

How do you do this? Eastern cultures understand the power of the spoken word much more than Americans do. When we speak words, those words take on a life of their own. Just as negative words spoken by others when we were younger have deep power in our lives so do positive words. A major part of installing our own software is found in the beautiful and magical mystery of speaking positive, life-affirming, future-positive words.

Simply speak affirmations that empower you to believe in yourself and the achievement of your goals, dreams and desires. You have the right to success, and you will succeed in the game of life! You must switch your default from “no, no, no” to “yes, yes, yes.” This is not easy, because you are unlearning behaviors that have been on your hard drive since the day you were born.
If you are forty years old, then that’s four decades of negative defaults that you must reprogram! It’s not easy to do. It doesn’t happen overnight, and it usually doesn’t happen by reading one book. You must invest in personal success habits on a daily basis that break through those defaults that were cemented in your childhood.

I along with most educators believe that you must read or listen to something at least seven times before you truly grasp the concepts of the material. Why? Because we are a society of multi-taskers. This means that we often do several things at one time; therefore, we don’t pay enough attention to any one thing and often miss the importance of what we are reading or listening to.

I suggest that you invest in seven different colored highlighters prior to reading this book. The first time that you read it, grab one highlighter and highlight what jumps out at you. Then, use a different color each time that you read it. I think you will be surprised by how much you missed the last time! You will also see that you internalize the reading differently on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and successive readings because of the growth in your life.Before our journey continues, we are going to begin recreating your defaults. Remember, this is a constant battle, and many people give up. Your default settings are very strong so you need to be even stronger in re-programming your life. Let’s get started.

I want you to commit right now to doing this exercise every time you are led to fall back into your negative defaults. You must say out loud, “I am a Champion by birthright, and I will not let my negative defaults control my successful future.” Will you do this?

Make a commitment right now to yourself by writing that affirmation below:

_____

Say it one more time just to get you comfortable with resetting your defaults. “I am a Champion by birthright, and I will not let my negative defaults control my successful future!”

Kick the Chicken!

Your negative defaults also known as “the past” will control your future only if YOU let them. The past tends to bind shackles around your ankles that hold you down as you try to proceed on your success journey. Close your eyes and imagine five hundred pound chains around each of your ankles as your pursuing your dream. It’s impossible! You and only you can make the decision to rip the chains of your past (your default settings) off your ankles and start walking free from what has been holding you down all these years.Many years ago, a minister gave a great illustration of this truth. He said that when farmers take chickens to the market, they will often tie their ankles and lay them in the bed of their truck for the ride to the sale barn. This prevents them from flying out of the truck.
When they arrive at the sale barn, he will take them out of the truck, place them on the ground, and then cut the cords, releasing them to get up. But, the chickens won’t get up! They think they’re still bound at their ankles so they just lay there. The farmer has to actually kick them so they flutter and finally get up. He went on to say that we must “kick the chicken” in ourselves in order to get out of our incapacities. So, kick the chicken in yourself. Your ankles are free!

As you go forward, don’t use your past to determine your future. Do not make excuses based on your past. Burn the bridge to your past mistakes and limitations. Remember: If the bridge to your past is burned behind you, then you have no choice but to travel the path into a successful future. Develop your Why in life and begin to achieve things in life that you’ve only dreamed about. Remember, choosing success over failure is your decision.