LIFE STYLE

Sometimes, life can become hectic. The path you’re traveling down that was so crystal clear when you began your journey can suddenly seem cloudy and uncertain. I’ve found that it’s in times like these where revisiting my most important goals is crucial. It’s easy to dream, in fact I would encourage you to never stop dreaming. But if we don’t stop and break those dreams down into an action plan on a regular basis, that’s when your vision becomes unclear.

Cautiously vs. Courageously

I believe that there are two ways to live life: Cautiously and courageously. Living cautiously isn’t necessarily a bad thing; you can still live a very happy, enjoyable life. For me, the disconnect happens when causation stops us from challenging ourselves, from becoming a better, more successful version of ourselves.

Living courageously includes striving toward lofty – perhaps even what seem would deem crazy – dreams. In dreams lie an inherent abundance mindset, we can see the potential in ourselves of where we are today and the unlimited growth we’re capable of. But just to dream isn’t enough. We have to put together an action plan of how our dreams will come to fruition.

For me, the turning point in dreaming big was our recent decision to free ourselves from the chains of our broker dealer, from the Wall Street powerhouses. Now that we can be a true representative of our clients, the opportunities to better serve people are unfolding daily. The potential of our team to make a positive impact in people’s lives is greater than I could’ve imagined.

However, I’ve realized that in dreaming big and capitalizing on big opportunities, breaking these down into attainable goals is crucial for our success.

5 Goal Hacks to Help You Achieve More

Here are five goal hacks that have greatly helped me over the years, and even more so recently, in not only setting goals but actually achieving them:

1. Make time to reflect and think. As simple as it sounds, people will routinely say they don’t have time to stop and think. But taking the time to stop and think about where you are and where you’re trying to go is important. It doesn’t have to happen daily; it can be a monthly, quarterly or even yearly exercise. Allocate this time to yourself and your thoughts. Shut off your phone, leave your normal routine, travel somewhere or simply shut the office door. Tune out the noise and get back in touch with your dreams.

2. Hold yourself accountable and write it down. Again, simple but extremely essential. Remember in school when you thought writing down all of those notes was a waste of time? Well in case it hasn’t hit you by now, it certainly wasn’t. It’s scientifically proven that we are more likely to retain information when we write it down. The same is true when it comes to your goals. Not only does this evoke a certain level of personal accountability, but I would even encourage you to take it one step further and find an accountability partner. In a recent study, 70% of participants who wrote down their goals and sent weekly updates to their selected peers reported getting them done, compared to only 35% who didn’t write them down.

3. Organize and categorize. Sometimes our own goals can seem overwhelming or disjointed, like they’re scattered all over the place. I know that this has been true with our team lately, with all of the changes we’ve encountered and opportunities we want to take advantage of. First, we needed to categorize our different goals, and give them a home. Then we needed to organize them in order of importance. You wouldn’t believe the impact this had, and how much it simplified things. What initially seemed daunting became a simplified process for each individual goal.

4. Assign deadlines. One of the most important steps in goal setting is applying a timeline. This is the backbone of your action plan, and is what keeps your goals in-tact. When you set hard deadlines, it keeps you motivated to stay focused and disciplined as you work toward your goal. Set up checkpoints along the way as well. These demonstrate whether or not progress is being made and if there are any obstacles that need to be addressed. Don’t forget, a goal without a plan is simply a wish. A comprehensive timeline gives your goals a tangible framework for achieving them.

5. Go backwards. It might sound weird, but I’ve found that working backwards can be highly beneficial. When I write down a goal, I then write down the ultimate end result that I am aiming for. Then I back into the starting point. It’s always easy to dream, but sometimes it’s not as easy to recognize all of the steps it will take to get there or what could go wrong. This is where working backwards helps me the most. Not only does it help me visualize an action plan, but it helps me identify obstacles that could deter our success early on. This is helpful for proactive planning, because I already have an idea of what can hinder the process and how to overcome it.

Rejection can conjure up feelings of genuine sadness, perhaps even anger and a low sense of self-worth. It’s a hard to pill to swallow when someone says that you’re just not good enough, that the dreams you invested your blood, sweat and tears into are doomed to fail. However, failure – more precisely, learning to accept failure – is a part of personal growth. One that we all must face at some point.

Think back to a time when you failed at something, when someone rejected your ideas and wrote them off without even blinking. Each “third time’s the charm,” “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” and “close but not quite” can become a long string of personal heartache. And while you may not be a weak person, there is only so much you can take before you just want to throw in the towel. It’s human nature.

As isolating as the struggle that is failure and rejection can be, you’re not the only person who has ever gone through this journey. In fact, rarely does any successful person achieve their goals on their first try.

For many, success only comes after failure. And often repeated failure.

15 Ridiculously Influential People Who Had to Fail to Succeed

So, don’t despair if you’ve failed a few times on your quest for success. Chances are you’ll have a few more bouts with failure and rejection before you get there. To prove that you’re in good company, here are 15 ridiculously influential people who had to fail to succeed:

Walt Disney. His editor at the Kansas City Star felt he lacked “imagination,” and that his story ideas were less than impressive. He was fired from the publication. From there, he had several more business ventures that failed. It wasn’t until the premier of his first movie, Snow White, that his path to fame would unfold before him. Disney went onto create an empire built on imagination, quirky creativity and the definition of all that is good about childhood.

Jay Z. As a young and rising star born in the Brooklyn projects, Shawn Carter couldn’t get a record label to sign him. When he failed to garner any interest on his first CD, he and his friends took to the streets and sold copies out of the trunks of their cars. Years of working to perfect his craft finally led to success, and being dubbed today’s King of Hip Hop. According to Forbes, the musician/investor/entrepreneur is now worth $550 million.

Stephen King. He found himself writing his own horror story when he was rejected by publishers 30 different times when trying to publish his – now infamous – novel Carrie. At one point, he became so disgusted with himself that he literally “threw in the manuscript,” right into the trash. Luckily for King, and the rest of the world, his wife dug the manuscript out of the trash and encouraged him to keep going. The novel became a hit and launched his career as the King of Horror. His novels have sold 350 million copies over his career.

Oprah Winfrey. Her first job in the spotlight landed her as a news anchor in Baltimore. That journey proved to be short lived, as she was fired for being too “emotionally invested in her stories.” She lacked the ability to deliver the story and move on, putting her news career in jeopardy early on. Little did her boss know that her compassion for others would be what propelled her to becoming the queen of talk shows. Winfrey has amassed a media empire – including HARPO studios which also produces the Dr. Phil show – and huge endorsement deals. Today, Forbes has estimated her net worth at $3 billion.

Thomas Edison. One of the most important inventive minds of the 20^th century was told by his teachers that he was “too stupid to learn anything.” His teachers’ predictions seemed to ring true, as Edison was fired from his first two jobs for not attaining a suitable level of productivity. Interestingly enough, being shunned from the working world was his ticket to success. Free from the handcuffs of societal standards, Edison’s creative genius was unleashed: He went on to hold more than 1,000 patents and invented world changing devices including the phonograph, electrical light bulb – which he failed at developing nearly 2,000 times – and a movie camera.

Steven Spielberg. If Spielberg had taken the multiple rejections from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts to heart, we may never have had the pleasure of seeing the world through his eyes. He powered through the piled up rejections, and released the summer blockbuster of 1975 with his movie, Jaws. His career has spanned decades, and includes three Academy Awards, four Emmys, and seven daytime Emmys. His 27 movies have grossed more than $9 billion worldwide.

J.K. Rowling. When she began writing the first Harry Potter novel, she was a single mom living on welfare. It took a number of rejections before Rowling got a bite on her idea for the book series. In 1999, the first three installments of the Harry Potter series crushed the New York Times best-seller list. By the summer of 2000, the first three books had earned $480 million, with over 35 million copies in 35 different languages in print, with the fourth installment became the fastest selling book in history. The Potter phenomenon exploded from there. Rowling is now Britain’s 13^th wealthiest woman – even wealthier than the Queen – and became America’s first billionaire author in 2004.

James Dyson. If you thought Edison failing almost 2,000 times to make the light bulb was insane, then brace yourself: James Dyson developed 5,126 failed prototypes before finding the Dyson brand’s claim to fame. Not only that, he simultaneously dwindled away his entire savings account over his 15-year journey of failure. Luckily, prototype number 5,127 worked. Dyson has become the best-selling bagless vacuum brand in the United States. Forbes estimates that James Dyson is now worth $4.9 billion.

Albert Einstein. During his childhood years, Einstein had a lot of difficulty communicating and learning in the traditional way that the rest of his classmates did. In fact, a 21^st century Albert Einstein probably would’ve been diagnosed with a learning disorder. Obviously, behavioral and communication problems had no impact on his intellectual ability. Einstein went from problem student to Nobel Prize-winner in physics for his discovery of the photoelectric effect. His theory of relativity also topped the brilliant mind of Isaac Newton, and corrected the deficiencies of Newtonian Physics.

Harrison Ford. He began his acting career with a small role in a movie, and immediately fell in love with dreams of stardom, fame and fortune. An executive who worked with Ford on his first movie was quick to yank him back to reality. He took Ford into his office and told him that he would never succeed in Hollywood. Just to prove the executive wrong, Ford built an acting career that has spanned 60 years. During his career, he has starred in some of the biggest blockbuster films in history, including Star Wars and the Indiana Jones series.

Dr. Seuss. Born Theodore Geisel, the first manuscript from Dr. Seuss was rejected by 28 different publishers. Finally, world renowned publisher Random House saw the possibility of the places children could go and the creative genius behind a meal of green eggs and ham. Dr. Seuss went on to become one of the most successful authors of children’s books. His books have sold more than 600 million copies.

Vera Wang. Her first failure came when she didn’t make the 1986 U.S. Olympic figure-skating team. Going back to her love of fashion, she did wind up an editor at Vogue magazine. Failure found her again when she was brushed off for the editor-in-chief position at the magazine. Wang decided to reinvent her life at the age of 40, and began designing wedding dresses. What started as sketches has grown her into one of the premier designers in the fashion industry, and a fashion empire worth more than $1 billion.

Colonel Sanders. Before finding his seat on the throne as “The Colonel,” Harland David Sanders was fired from dozens of jobs – both in and out of the food industry. His quest to deliver fried chicken goodness to the people of America took him across the country looking for someone to see his vision and sell his chicken. Finally, a business deal in Utah proved that his recipe truly was finger lickin’ good, and thus Kentucky Fried Chicken was born. KFC is now one of the most popular food franchises in the world, and has over 18,000 locations.

Henry Ford. Early in his career, Ford all but ruined his reputation with a handful of failed automobile businesses. Manufacturing automobiles in the 1890s was a daunting, time consuming and labor intensive task. When Ford couldn’t get it right, investors became aggravated and pulled their funding. After a long search, Ford finally found the right business partner who had faith in his vision. Proving the importance of learning from your mistakes, Ford went on to found the Ford Motor Company, forever changing the automobile industry with the creation of the assembly line.

Saul Bellow. His dream was to touch the hearts of millions with the written word. However, his English professor, the famed Norman Maclean, quickly snuffed out that dream: He told Bellow that he showed no signs of literary greatness, and chalked him up to be a “dud.” Well, sure was one of the most successful “duds” of our time. He went on to win the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, a Guggenheim, and the National Medal of Arts. Bellow’s other claim to fame is that he is the only writer to win the National Book Award for Fiction three separate times. He also received the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

Failure is an inherent part of any journey to find success. Stopping at the first, tenth, twentieth, even fiftieth run-in with rejection or failure can mean you’re selling yourself and your dreams short. In the words of the latest Cadillac ad campaign slogan, “Only those who dare drive the world forward.”

Dare greatly, my friends.

Life is a game – even Milton Bradley would tell you so. Each of us plays the game differently, making the moves we think will get us to our ideal ending, and in turn we end up with different results. So, why do some players experience much more success in life than others? And if they can do it, how can you be just as successful in life.

Successful players in a game understand one critical fact to winning that game: Every game has principles that need to be mastered in order to win. Life is no different; establishing principles gives us a way to successfully deal with the “laws” of life. And when we are aware of many different principles and understand them well, our ability to effectively live and interact with the people and world we live in is enhanced.

Ray Dalio’s 6-Step Success Formula

Ray Dalio is one of those successful players. Now worth an estimated $15 billion, Dalio is the founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund. Clearly, he understood that there were certain principles of success to master in life, and understood the importance of perfecting them.

Dalio has long said that he has a systematic philosophy that guides him in both his everyday life and business. He recently laid this out for the masses in his ebook Principles.

Taking the essential revelations from Dalio’s Principles, the 100+ page manifesto can be condensed into a six-step process that you can follow to achieve greater success in life:

Step 1: Create Your Own Goals

Many of us adhere to the idea that learning to perfect what we are taught is the end-all path to success. Dalio would disagree with you. For him, the goal of learning is to get what you want. This is why figuring out for yourself what you want and what you have to learn in order to get it leads to more success. Start by asking yourself what you want most out of life, and what are your most important life goals. Keep yourself grounded along the way with these “truisms” from Dalio:

1. You can have virtually anything you want, but you can’t have everything you want.

2. In order to get what you want, the first step is to truly know what you want, without confusing goals with desires, and without limiting yourself because of some imagined impediments you haven’t thoroughly analyzed.

Step 2: Come up With Independent Opinions on How to Achieve Your Goals

Echoing what we previously touched on in Step 1, a core part of Dalio’s philosophy lies in becoming an independent thinker. Agreeing with the consensus means you are agreeing with what you have been taught by others, making it much harder for you to gain anything more than the average. But, going against the consensus also means there is a large chance you can be wrong – always stay humble. For Dalio, the key to being successful in life comes from finding when the consensus is wrong and you have an independent opinion that is right.

Step 3: Stress Test Your Independent Opinions

Dalio notes that one of the biggest problems we face today is that too many people are walking around with wrong theories in their heads. To take this a level deeper, perhaps our biggest mistake is not being able to see ourselves and those around us objectively. To make sure he isn’t one of these people, Dalio does the following:

1. Encourages a culture of transparency at Bridgewater. For instance, all meetings are recorded. This allows people to receive feedback from others whom they otherwise wouldn’t, helping them learn to bypass defensive tendancies and truly understand and grow from the feedback.

2. Shares his theories with others. Dalio had the smartest people he could find challenge his opinions, and find where they believed he was wrong. The goal was to listen to the logic others used to draw their conclusions and then explain why he didn’t come to the same conclusion. This is where Dalio perfects being “open minded and assertive at the same time.”

3. Remains skeptical of his own ideas. Dalio regularly reflects on his ideas, challenging himself to assume that they are wrong. This helps him avoid overconfidence and pushes him to keep gathering information until he’s sure that his idea is right.

Step 4: Reflect on Your Psychological Pains and How to Overcome Them

It’s a proven fact in investing that the pain of loss is felt much deeper than the gratification of gaining money. Instead of learning from the situation that caused us pain, we often enact our “fight or flight” response. Investors keep trying to correct the loss or they run away from the market.

The same is true with consequences that arise from life decisions we have made. Dalio stresses the importance of not only being able to learn from our mistakes and improve the next time around, but also the importance of overcoming the pain associated with the reflection process. We can either allow that pain to stand in the way of our progress, or understand how to manage pain to produce progress. Here are some reflection “truisms” from Dalio:

1. You will be much more successful if you focus on design and diagnosis rather than jumping to solutions.

2. Tolerating problems has the same result as not identifying them. Both stand in the way of getting past the problem.

Step 5: Turn Your Proven, Independent Opinions Into a Machine

Dalio uses the metaphor of a machine to represent systems you can create in your life that will produce consistent, predictable results. Those who are most successful are able to act as two people when designing their machine:

1. The observer who creates the machine and monitors its performance.

2. The participant who makes the machine work.

Not only can they assess and improve how their machine works, but they can also be objective about themselves as a participant. This lets them put themselves in a position to win based on their unique abilities. Essentially, the machine is a feedback loop.

Step 6: Turn the Machine On

Now that you’ve done the grunt work of identifying what you want, what you have to learn to get it, challenging your own thoughts and ideas that you believe to be right and designing your machine, there’s only one thing left to do: Turn it on.

Here are some take-action “trusims” from Dalio:

1. It’s critical that each day you know what you need to do and have the discipline to do it.

2. People who succeed at this stage can reliably execute a plan. They tend to be self-disciplined and proactive rather than reactive to the blizzard of daily tasks that can divert them execution. They are results-oriented. They love to push themselves over the finish line to achieve the goal.

Why Does it Matter to You?

To wrap things up, I’ll leave you with one final thought:

“Successful people are 100% convinced they are masters of their own destiny. They’re not creatures of circumstance, they create circumstance. If the circumstances around them suck, they change them.” -Jordan Belfort (the real-life Wolf of Wall Street)

Happy success hunting.