-H. Jackson Brown, Jr.-
21 Suggestions for SUCCESS
1. Marry the right person. This one decision will determine 90% of your happiness or misery.
2. Work at something you enjoy and that’s worthy of your time and talent.
3. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.
4. Become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know.
5. Be forgiving of yourself and others.
6. Be generous.
7. Have a grateful heart.
8. Persistence, persistence, persistence.
9. Discipline yourself to save money on even the most modest salary.
10. Treat everyone you meet like you want to be treated.
11. Commit yourself to constant improvement.
12. Commit yourself to quality.
13. Understand that happiness is not based on possessions, power or prestige, but on relationships with people you love and respect.
14. Be loyal.
15. Be honest.
16. Be a self-starter.
17. Be decisive even if it means you’ll sometimes be wrong.
18. Stop blaming others. Take responsibility for every area of your life.
19. Be bold and courageous. When you look back on your life, you’ll regret the things you didn’t do more than the ones you did.
20. Take good care of those you love.
21. Don’t do anything that wouldn’t make your Mom proud.
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Here is my take on each one of the quotes, they all moved me in one way or another and I would like to capture these thoughts. Almost like a meme, if you would like you should also see what each one of the statements mean to you.
1. Marry the right person. This one decision will determine 90% of your happiness or misery. I was surprised by this quote, not because it is not accurate, but because when I read the title I expected something else to be the first quote, and never expected marriage to be there. This quote is very powerful; I always believe that behind every great man there is an even greater woman.
2. Work at something you enjoy and that’s worthy of your time and talent. How important this is, but how many people don’t seem to understand it. Work is work, and we get paid for it because for must of us it is hard to work at something we truly love. I try to love my job as much as I can but it is more important for me to feel like I am using my talent to perform it.
3. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully. This one I have to work on, I try to do this but I am not as effective at giving it cheerfully as I should be. It is actually not that hard to do, but it always comes back to a smile goes a long way.
4. Become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know. Exercise plays a big role in this one for me, I need those endorphins I guess. I will however become this person once again. The workload lately has been so heavy that it has been difficult to concentrate on positive thinking but this has become my new short-term goal.
5. Be forgiving of yourself and others. This one while short is a loaded quote. It is very difficult at time to forgive yourself, I have a hard time sometimes. Not that forgiving other is easy either but sometimes it is easier than forgiving yourself.
6. Be generous. I try, but lately I have felt like my generosity in the past has been taken advantage off… I guess I really need to work on this one a little more because I should never give expecting anything. I guess expecting friendship in exchange for generosity was never on my mind… but then when I was generous because of a friendship that was not there I felt used. I guess I need to be generous and be conscious of the fact that it is just being that.
7. Have a grateful heart. Wow, being successful is a hard task. I have a grateful heart, but at times I am not the best at counting my blessings. I should do this more often instead of daydreaming about the day I win the lottery.
8. Persistence, persistence, persistence. I would like to think I am persistent but most people that know me will just say I’m stubborn.
9. Discipline yourself to save money on even the most modest salary. Oh, how miserably I failed at this one. I think this is a long term goal, but I do see the importance of saving.
10. Treat everyone you meet like you want to be treated. I really try to do this, even though at times it does not come naturally. I will also like to work on this.
11. Commit yourself to constant improvement. I think I am pretty good at this, I have become better and better at it. I do think that this is one of the fundamental things about success.
12. Commit yourself to quality. It is difficult at times to do this, there are so many definitions of quality and at so many levels, but I do commit myself to improve on the quality of my personal relationships.
13. Understand that happiness is not based on possessions, power or prestige, but on relationships with people you love and respect. This is one of the most important quotes in this list. It also has to be added that happiness is a state of mind that only can be achieved internally. No one can make you happy other than yourself, but keeping good relationships does help and make you wealthy beyond all the gold in the world.
14. Be loyal. No matter who, once you have a relationship with me I am a loyal person. There might be ways to take this beyond just this, but I am not sure how just yet.
15. Be honest. I am as subtle as a Mack truck.
16. Be a self-starter. Oh, this one can be tricky, I am a self-starter, but sometimes not the best self finisher
17. Be decisive even if it means you’ll sometimes be wrong. No argument there.
18. Stop blaming others. Take responsibility for every area of your life. Through my life I have thought that I had achieved complete responsibility, but it has been a difficult task also. Guilt has been a great demon that I have had to fight and the worse part of it is that blame is never responsibility.
19. Be bold and courageous. When you look back on your life, you’ll regret the things you didn’t do more than the ones you did. This quote is great and it makes me feel even stronger about my no regrets mentality.
20. Take good care of those you love. I strive for this every single day of my life.
21. Don’t do anything that wouldn’t make your Mom proud. Years ago I would not have cared much for this quote, but now I have become a lot closer with my Mom in many levels and this quote means a lot more.
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I don’t think this is the ultimate list for success, but I do think it is a very good start towards a good path. I do think that if you can achieve goals set based on this list you will be more in the path to success than failure.
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