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

Lesson 10

View from the Mountain

When we discover new and life-altering truths, we are like pioneers standing on a mountain ridge looking at a new beginning. In the cool, crisp morning air, we can see forever. Then, our gaze slowly and finally settles on a beautiful valley. The vivid colors of the grass and lakes and the framing horizons of sky and mountain peaks are just breathtaking. In that golden moment, our heart says, “Yes. That’s it! That’s where I want to spend the rest of my life.” We can hardly wait to get down there and go to work building our future. Our heart almost explodes as we imagine breaking the sod, planting crops, building a house and joining with other like-minded people in creating a new community. We are seized by “Sometimes a Great Notion.”

We finally arrive in that valley and begin to carve out that new life. At first, it’s romantic and exciting, but after a while reality sets in. We discover that it’s too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. Mosquitoes, crickets and rattlesnakes can make life difficult. When we initially saw the gorgeous and lush green meadow from the mountain top, we didn’t realize that much of the meadow was filled with weeds. At that point, the faint-hearted will become discouraged and begin gazing at the next mountain range. They end up forsaking the valley in pursuit of another dream. Too many remain wanderers in life, drifters away from the dream and always preoccupied by new mountain ridges.

For example, some people are like that regarding their own marriage. They begin in great excitement, romance and passion. But when they get into the hard work and heavy lifting of building a life with another person, they get discouraged and start looking for someone else.

Refresh Your Vision!

I’ve learned that when discouragement sets in, it’s best to go back to the mountain top where you stood the first time your eyes fell on that valley.

Refresh your vision!

Remind yourself of the great possibilities that you once saw. For instance, go back in your mind to when you first met your husband or wife. I’ll talk to the men for a second, but ladies this also applies to you. What was it that you saw in her? Remember the way that she held her head and smiled as she listened to you talk. Remember how she laughed when you told a joke.

Remember how your eyes filled with tears when you saw her coming down the aisle of the church on your wedding day.

Sometimes, we just have to go back and revisit the view and refresh the vision that we had from the mountain. That applies to our Why as well as to our spouse. No matter what, your Why is still there as radiant and full of possibilities as ever. You just have to refresh your vision of what you saw the first time that you ever imagined it or wrote out your Why Card.

In this last lesson, I want to take you back to the mountain and refresh your vision. I recommend that you re-read this lesson (return to the mountain) once a week until it’s inscribed in your heart and mind.

Let’s take a few minutes to climb back up to the peak from which you first saw the possibilities of a new life. Here are some of the things you saw:

Find Your Why and Fly!

I want to break this down word by word so you can get a renewed vision for it.

Find

You have to FIND it. Your Why will not seek you out. It will not hunt you down and wrap itself around your life. You have to dig, search, excavate and often get frustrated or even angry as you work to FIND it. Olympians spend years practicing and training for the Olympics prior to ever attending the actual events. They are laser-focused on winning a gold medal. You have to display the same kind of tenacious, relentless and patient focus on FINDING your why.

Your

We’re working on YOUR Why not mine and not anyone else’s. You are responsible for it not me, not your mother, not your spouse, not your boss. You own it!

If your Why doesn’t challenge you to discover and fulfill your ultimate purpose in life, then YOU are the one that has to figure it out. You and only you. It’s YOUR Why!

Why

This is the core, the center of your life. It is the driving force. It’s the “north star” of why you even take up space on the planet. Your Why is your reason for living. It’s your most compelling purpose. If it doesn’t scare you, it’s too small. If it doesn’t change you, it’s an insufficient Why.

And

The simple word “and” is a very important conjunction. According to Webster’s New World Dictionary “and” means next or thereupon or in addition to. In other words, Finding Your Why leads to something else. “And” also establishes the order. In this case, you have to Find Your Why and only THEN can you Fly! If you try to fly first, then you will end up flat on your face because you haven’t learned to use your wings.

Fly

Jim Rohn talks about living where you want to live, wearing what you want to wear and driving what you want to drive. In other words, a vital part of life is getting to taste the sweet fruit of success. Finding your Why leads to flying. Of course, you can’t do this part first. The fruit, the result and the outcome of finding your Why is the ability to fly beyond all of your hopes and dreams. It’s your ability to finally understand what success feels like.

Here are some other things you saw from the mountain ridge:

Reclaim Your Birthright

Never forget that the most important day of your life is your birthday. That’s why the day is special. That’s why you (and those who love you) celebrate it. It’s more than just a cultural thing. We have a sense down deep in our heart that the day is significant.

Why? First off, because of the way sperm unites with the egg, we are all a miracle, literally a one in a million success! At birth, we all start out the same. We’re on the same planet, we’re subject to the same natural laws, and we all begin our lives in the womb as a miracle of success.
That’s also why our birth certificate is so important. It is a legal document that gives you the right to grow up and become a Champion. That piece of paper is your Certificate of Life. Unlike working for a college degree, you automatically earn your Certificate of Life when you exit the womb. No questions asked. You are destined for success!

Refuse to be a Victim

Our society carries a relentless temptation to blame someone else. Victimization is the ethic of our times. It has a way of becoming our work ethic (the boss or the company are the reason we don’t succeed), our marriage ethic (our spouse keeps us from becoming who we were meant to be) and our life ethic (because my mother or father or 3rd grade teacher damaged me with their insults, I will never be a whole person).

When we break the cycle of blame, we take responsibility for our own life. It is only when we decide to stop blaming others that we begin to succeed.

(Re)Program Your Computer

Our life’s default program is one of discouragement, temptation, fear, anger and doubt. It projects discouraging, dangerous and defeating messages. This default program comes mostly from television, newspapers, music, movies, billboards and real live people. All of us walk through a daily bombardment of programmed words that are highly toxic.

Here’s the process by which the default programming is installed on our internal computer. What comes in our ears, enters into our heart and then comes out our mouth. Ears > Heart > Mouth. Even Jesus said we are defiled by what comes out of our mouth. Just further proving that this is not a new concept.

We have to re-program our internal computer. We have to deliberately choose the software that will make it run clean, smooth and fast. That software is a combination of the words that we read and the words that we hear. These words form the attitudes, thoughts and expectations of our life. Therefore, we must be careful what we watch and read. Words are some of the most powerful things in life. They are seeds. When these seeds fall into the soil of our lives, they take on a life of their own. The seeds start to develop roots, take over the field and create a massive crop. That’s why we have to be vigilant even militant to only sow the right kind of seeds.

I rarely watch TV. Why? Because it’s like inviting a negative, lying, cynical and flirtatious person to live in my house. Why would I do that? Why would I invite someone I didn’t trust or even like to live in my house? I’m always amazed when I hear parents talk about having to monitor the TV for their kids. Would they invite a dangerous, crazy person to live in their house and then feel the need to be present every time he talked to their kids? NO! Not only would you NOT invite someone like that to live in your house, but you would get a restraining order to keep them far away from your house and your kids.

The reason I’m writing so much about TV is that in our society television is probably the biggest source of programming that goes into our internal computer.

Forget the Past

All of us have made mistakes, committed sins, disappointed our family and friends, and even injured other people. Those things can be haunting, but all that we can do is to try to make things right with people and move on.
Most of us have also had great successes in our past, and sometimes the successes are as restricting as the failures. When we have an image of something we accomplished, that image often has a way of blinding us from seeing the brand-new possibilities that may be different and better than what we’ve already attained.

For some reason, we have trouble escaping our past failures and successes. As long as we are a prisoner to the past, we can never fully embrace the new future that awaits us.

That’s why the Apostle Paul, one of the greatest figures in world history, said “... one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call…” - Philippians 3:13-14.

Our past has no hold on us. It can only hurt or be an obstacle if we allow that in our mind. That’s the lesson of “kicking the chicken.” Let me refresh your memory. 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 to stir them to flutter and get up. We sometimes must “kick the chicken” in ourselves in order to get out of our obsession with our imprisonment to our past. So, “kick the chicken” in yourself. Your ankles are free! Get up and walk around. Celebrate your freedom.

Discover the Power of Commitment

Commitment is the foundation for building your life. It is the bedrock of achieving your ultimate Why in life. Commitment is that hammer-hard, burn-the-boats, full-speed-ahead determination to do, to be and to achieve something. Nothing, absolutely nothing will stop a person of genuine commitment.

One of the main reasons that Champions have commitment is to just get through the clutter, the confusion and the noise in our society. We are saturated with lights, colors and voices. It’s so easy to just flop down and watch TV or go hang out at the local pub. To really focus on achieving massive results requires a very serious commitment to our own future. Do you have that kind of commitment?

For example, do you make appointments with yourself? Do you make them with your own spouse and children? A genuine depth of commitment will cause you to take your own life and your family seriously. We schedule time for meetings with our business associates, beauticians, bankers and others that are far less important to us than our own future and our family members. Perhaps our priorities need to be remodeled.

Every champion, every success maniac, should commit to regularly scheduling time with a good book or a conversation with his or her spouse or quality time with his or her children. It is also important to schedule time with other Champions. Let them infect you with their success and winning attitude.

Build a Habit of Giving Generously

If you knew that all healthy people had one thing in common, wouldn’t you want to know that one health secret? Well, if you want to be magnificently successful, you need to know the one victory secret that Champions have in common. That one thing is the habit of generous giving.

Giving is an attitude. It finds real and deep joy in blessing other people. To give generously is to discover a secret fountain in the heart and when you give your life away, it always returns to you in fuller, deeper, richer measure than it was when you gave it away. Sowing and reaping are principles of the universe. Whatever and however you sow is the same measure by which you will reap. Take that to the bank!

Embrace the Miracle!

Every person in this world is unique. There are no two people exactly alike, and every person is a miracle. Just the fact that you were born means that you have already beat the odds.

We are all caught in a war. Part of the war is the chorus of voices that try to devalue your uniqueness and steal your dream. Those voices even try to make us part of a group. A major part of embracing and celebrating the miracle is to reject the label. You are not a group. Always remember that you are YOU!

Keep Moving Past the Obstacles

The three main obstacles standing between you and success are:

1. Toxic people
2. Your past
3. Giving up

Set your face toward your future and move right on past those obstacles. Do not be distracted by anything or anyone. It’s YOUR life! Don’t stop or take a detour. Remain focused on the goal and keep moving.

The Bible tells the story of Jesus healing a paralyzed man. What Jesus said is very instructive for us, “Rise, take up your bed, and walk.” I think he may have told him to pick up his bed in order to remove the temptation of falling back into bed! Once you pick up your bed, it’s easier to remain focused on walking. As long as the bed beckons, we’re always tempted to quit.

Face Your Fear

Fear is no stranger to me. I’ve told you my story of stuttering, but you have a story of fear too. In fact, everyone reading this book knows fear. Most people assume that they have some special fear. That’s simply not true. Your fear may be slightly different than mine, but fear is universal. Everyone has it, and everyone has to choose how to deal with it.

If you are going to achieve greatness and be a champion, then you first have to face, attack, demolish and pulverize fear. I had to do it. You have to do it. We all have to face our fear in order to achieve our Why. Don’t let fear intimidate you. Remember that everyone that ever lived had to deal with fear. You can and will do it!

“Why” is More Important than “How”

Having a strong and focused WHY is vastly more important than knowing HOW you’re going to achieve it. The Why will give birth to the How. If you focus on the How, then you’ll never have a large enough Why.

Sometimes I think the news media has turned us into “how addicts.” You’ve heard it all. . . “How will you do that, Mr. President?” “How can we ever solve a global crisis like AIDS?” “Give us the details on how you can balance the budget, Governor.”

Focusing on how introduces fear and doubt. If you work at thinking through the How, then you leave too much room for fear and despairing doubt to seep into your mind. Again, Nike’s ad line is helpful: “Just do it.” The How will show up at the proper time!

OK, I guess it’s about time to go on down the mountain and back out to building your dream. Remember, you need to come back here about once a week.

Reading this book has been an exciting journey, hasn’t it? The fact that you completed this book and have found – or are in the process of finding – your Why in life proves to me that you are destined for greatness.

I won’t say that your journey to the full development and enjoyment of living your Why is going to be easy, but you hold a great key to success in this book. I don’t say that because of my ego. I say it, because the truths in these pages are time-tested and proven to be effective. They worked for me, and they have worked for literally thousands of successful people.

You have been given an iron-clad, blueprint that will guide you through the basics that you need to “Find Your Why and Fly!” You are a Champion! If you’ve not already done it, take time to Find Your Why.

Always remember, my fellow Champions, that when the crowd of “they” say there’s no sense in going further and that everything has already been explored, don’t believe it! Don’t settle for mediocrity. Just keep listening for the sound of that little voice within that continues to tell you that it is possible. It still calls out just as strong and just as clear as it did to Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, George Washington Carver, Helen Keller, and thousands of other Champions throughout history.

That something hidden down deep inside is your Why. It waits. Go and search for it. It is waiting for only you! When you find it, write and tell me about it. Send me a copy of your Why Card. I want to hear YOUR story.

Oh, and one final thing. Remember to join the Lifestyle Freedom Club. We’re all familiar with Clubs. People have clubs for real estate, movies, books, knitting, sports, etc., but how many of you have ever belonged to or even heard of a Club devoted strictly to building motivation for success and provides resources to assist you on your journey? Imagine it - a Club that only exists to help you find the right motivation, provides life-changing resources and gives you the ability to hang out with mastermind team members that will support your dream and encourage you toward the fulfillment of your Why. I believe this Club is a MUST for dream builders. Start learning how to live the lifestyle that you’ve only dreamed about today by visiting www.LifestyleFreedomClub.com.