The Anatomy of Success & Failure - *7* Essential Elements that will Guarantee Radical Success in Life! - Elements #4 - #7

Excerpt from The Anatomy of Success & Failure *7* Essential Elements that will Guarantee Radical Success in Life!

Essential Element #4: Blind Bamboo Faith

The next Essential Element is BBF, which stands for blind bamboo faith. Now, let me explain, because I know you are likely really confused by those three little words.

Interestingly, it takes five to six years for the bamboo to just break ground, but within one day, it could grow up to eighty feet. After a year or two in the growth process, the bamboo is so strong that hunters actually use it to protect themselves from charging rhinos. Can you imagine a plant being so strong that it can sustain a hit from a rhino running at it full force? Now, that’s incredible strength!

The important thing to remember is that the bamboo didn’t start out like that. It went through a growth process. At one point, it was just a small seed. The bamboo didn’t question the growth process. It waited patiently underground for five or six years being nurtured and fed until it finally saw daylight. With the sun feeding its growth, it quickly developed strength and power.

Eventually, it became the mightiest plant in the jungle. Why? Because it had blind bamboo faith. It didn’t let its meager beginnings or the fact that it was stuck in darkness for six years determine its ultimate outcome.

Your Why is like a tiny bamboo seed that is deep within the soil. You feed it with nutrients like daily affirmations, and it begins to take on a life of its own. However, most people don’t allow their Why to even start the growth cycle. It just stays buried deep in the darkness. Why? Because they lack blind bamboo faith.

For example, one of my Elite Coaching Students, Dorcie Farkash, had her Why (her ultimate purpose in life) shoved down deep inside of her heart when we met. She was in search of all kinds of things to make her happy, but she wasn’t finding the happiness that she desperately desired because it laid dormant in the darkness. Once Dorcie figured out what her Why really was in life, she started feeding it every day with affirmations. She nurtured it by immersing herself in positive motivational books, CDs, DVDs and other materials. Dorcie became focused on her Why and that seed deep down in her heart started its growth process.

Five years later, Dorcie Farkash is no longer a miserable person in fear of losing everything that she’s ever worked for in life. She’s found her happiness. She has strong, healthy relationships with her family. Her business has surpassed the million dollar level. She is mentally, physically and emotionally healthy. She is changing lives through her giving. She is strong enough to stand up to any adversity that stands in her way. Dorcie didn’t focus on the darkness. She had blind bamboo faith and now she is achieving all of her dreams and more.

You might be saying, “Well, that’s great for her, but I can’t see my way out of the darkness to even remotely think about being that happy in life.” Remember, that’s how Dorcie started out. The only way that having blind bamboo faith won’t work for you is if you don’t give it a chance and your Why stays buried in darkness for the rest of your life. No one deserves to live like that.

One of the main things that stops you from allowing your Why to grow is other people. You start to get excited about your Why, you feed it daily with affirmations, and you start to immerse yourself in positive personal development materials. You share your excitement with friends and family. Then it happens. The committee of “they” starts to tell you that it will never work, and you are wasting your time. They question your every move and discourage you from continuing the growth process, because it just isn’t realistic to them.

You have two choices at this point. Let the naysayers determine your level of success, and you simply allow your Why seed to die. Or you stand up for yourself and your Why with blind bamboo faith. No matter what anyone says to you, you keep standing strong with blind bamboo faith. You keep feeding and nourishing your Why. You develop strength to the point that the naysayers can no longer discourage you. Before long, you are living your Why and encouraging those same people that ridiculed you to do the same. This leads right into the next Essential Element.

Essential Element #5: Associations

Your associations absolutely guarantee success or failure. If I were to back-track failure in someone’s life, I can almost guarantee that the failure was in some way caused or supported by a negative association in that person’s life. Similarly, if I look back on the success journey of my coaching students, I will find people in their lives that supported and encouraged them along the way. They simply couldn’t have made it if they didn’t have a mastermind team that empowered them to achieve their goals and dreams.

This is serious stuff. Think about it. If you were determined to become physically fit and healthy, you wouldn’t continue to keep chips, doughnuts and candy in your pantry. You would implement the gift of good-bye in your diet. How? You would make a conscious decision to move out of the old nutritional neighborhood, and separate yourself from fast food restaurants in order to be elevated to healthy power foods. What if you tried to be healthy but made the decision to keep eating junk food? It simply wouldn’t work. You can’t have a healthy body by continuing to put toxins in it.

Now, I know you are likely saying, “John, that’s common sense. Everyone knows that.” If that’s true, then why do people that strive for success make the conscious decision to keep the same negative friends? They are ruining your chance at success just like junk food ruins your ability to be healthy.

I’m often asked, “What’s the number one reason for success and failure?” Hands down…the answer is associations. It’s not a person’s inability to achieve success or lack of opportunity in the world. The number one cause of success or failure in a person’s life is their mastermind team. Your mastermind team is who you surround yourself with on a daily basis. If you don’t know who those people are in your life, just take a look at your cell phone. The top five people that you talk to on a daily basis will determine your level of success or failure. I know that’s scary for some people, but whoever you surround yourself with is who you will ultimately become in life.

The reason that I sound like I’m from New York is because I was born and raised there. My mom and dad are New Yorkers. My entire crazy Italian family is from New York. On the flip side, my wife is from Tennessee and had a thick Southern accent when we met. Over the years, she has lost some of her accent because she no longer lives in Tennessee plus she is married to a New Yorker. However, when she goes back to Tennessee to spend time with her mother, her accent instantly comes back.

Similarly, if you hang out with positive champions, then you will develop a success accent. Everything that comes out of your mouth will be influenced by your Why and your desire to be successful in life. If you go back to the “old” you, then you will instantly revert back to your old ways and hang out with negative naysayers that condemn your dreams. As you see, your success or failure is determined by your associations.

Making the decision to separate yourself from negative associations will likely be a very lonely time in your life. I call it the isolation zone. You no longer hang out with your old friends, and you haven’t built a positive mastermind team yet. This is a very crucial crossroad for your Why. Keep pressing forward no matter how lonely it gets. Stay focused on your dream!

That’s the exact reason that I created the Lifestyle Freedom Club. The Club is full of fired up champions just like you that have a desire to be successful. They celebrate each other’s successes and support each other through the hard times. If you’ve had a hard time building your mastermind team and want to surround yourself with other champions, then I suggest that you join the Club. Visit www.LifestyleFreedomClub.com to become a member today!

Essential Element #6: Structural Integrity

Close your eyes and picture a frozen body of water. It’s vast and covered with a wintery blanket of snow. A novice will look at this frozen landscape and conclude that there is no way for a ship to cross it, but that’s not true. Large vessels are designed to cut through ice. They’re built with structural integrity and strength to grind and cut away at the ice with no problem.

Most people look at obstacles in their lives the same way. They instantly assume that they can’t overcome something that big. The word “impossible” is part of their everyday lives. “It’s impossible” becomes permission for them to accept failure in everything that challenges them. “It’s impossible” is an excuse for not achieving your goals and dreams. You give up before you even try.

Why are so many people stuck in the impossible mindset? It’s simple. They lack structural integrity. To face the impossible requires deep-rooted strength that will allow you to push through the impossible just like the large vessels push through the ice. You wouldn’t attempt to cross the Arctic in a rubber dingy so why would you attempt to face obstacles in your life with an impossible mindset?

Developing the deep rooted strength that will provide you with the structural integrity that you need to face adversity takes commitment. You must commit to immersing yourself daily in positive self-development, saying your daily affirmations out loud, and associating daily with positive champions. Notice the keyword in that sentence – daily. Every single day, you must commit to building that deep rooted strength that will serve as the foundation for your ability to overcome the impossible.

When we talk about the integrity of a ship’s hull that has the ability to cut through ice, we are referring to the solid, strong part of the ship that does not bend or compromise when it’s busting through ice. The ship’s integrity is exactly the same when it enters and exits the ice.
Now, let’s compare our integrity. When we face obstacles, our integrity should remain constant. We should not bend or compromise our integrity because of a challenging situation. Unfortunately when it comes to facing the impossible, people suddenly forget everything they stand for and are willing to push aside their values to just get through the situation.

The word “compromise” is defined as making a dishonorable or shameful concession or decision. Doesn’t it make you cringe to think that your actions have been shameful or dishonorable? But when most people are faced with an impossible situation, they instantly start thinking how they can get around the impossible instead of facing it head on.

That’s why I love the Bible story of David and Goliath. When facing a massive giant that seemed impossible to defeat especially since he was only armed with a few stones and a slingshot, David ran directly towards Goliath. He didn’t run away or wait for Goliath to attack him. David ran towards the impossible. His structural integrity gave him the confidence to face the impossible and defeat it.

You will face adversity (the impossible) in your life. It’s inevitable! Dr. Todd Mullins says that if you aren’t smack dab in the middle of adversity, then you are likely coming out of it or getting ready to enter it. Simply put…adversity is a part of life. So, you can either face it with sound structural integrity or you will continue to make excuses and let impossibility control your level of success for the rest of your life. Remember, building your structural integrity is a daily process that you must commit to in order to face the enemy of impossible.

Essential Element #7: Brutally Truthful

Last but not least, you have to be brutally truthful with yourself about the thin line between success and failure. No one is immune to failure. That’s right. We have all failed at something in our lives. Thomas Edison failed ten thousand times before he finally created the light bulb. Aren’t you glad he didn’t give up? He understood that just because he failed at something didn’t mean he had to stay in the failure zone no matter how many times he failed.

That’s the difference between Thomas Edison and so many other people. He didn’t take up residence in the failure zone. He was brutally truthful with himself about his failure and he learned from it. Think about failure and how much it hurts. Can you imagine the pain that Thomas Edison went through after ten thousand failures? However, he knew his Why and didn’t let thousands of failures stand in the way of his success.

Failure scares most people so much that once they fail, they will never try again. They settle for failure. Fear of failure is one of the fastest growing phobias in the world. Why? Because most people lack the ability to fully surrender to the fact that failing is part of the success process not the end result. Instead they wallow in their misery after failing and never try again. They actually stand in the way of their own success.

We’ve discussed the fact that failure hurts. How do you get past it so you aren’t afraid to try and try again until you succeed? I recommend this two-step process. First, you become brutally truthful with yourself by admitting your failure. Say it out loud, “I failed! Failure is part of my success journey. I will not remain in the failure zone!” The second step is to stand firm on the structural integrity that you’ve development through your commitment to daily personal development. This will give you the strength to push through failure so that you can achieve success. The key is to remain brutally truthful about your failure with a full understanding that you absolutely deserve success in every area of your life.

Conclusion

These seven essential elements will radically explode your level of success if you implement them into your daily action steps. Remember, your birth certificate gives you the absolute right to achieve success. Don’t be discouraged by your failures. Instead, allow them to drive you to succeed and stay focused on your Why in life. You are a Champion!