Focus, You Won't Succeed Without It
Being focused is not an option if you are serious about realizing your dreams. Being focused on your dream is critical to making it become a reality.
Back in 1984, when I made a decision to take up the sport of luge and make a run at the Olympics, I took an 8x10 photo of a luge racer and hung it up across from my bed.
The first thing I saw every morning was "The Luge Man." He reminded me to work out, eat right and surround myself with winners.
The last thing I saw every night before I turned off the lights was "The Luge Man". All night long I would dream about the luge and about the Olympics.
I never met "The Luge Man", but he is one of my heroes. He helped keep me focused on my objective. And he was a factor that helped make my dream come true.
Your ability to single-mindedly focus on your top priorities will determine how much you accomplish.
I just read the story of someone else whose dream was focused by a photograph...
The Great Depression was not kind to (legendary Hotelier) Conrad Hilton. After the crash of 1929, people weren't traveling, and if they were, they weren't staying in the hotels Hilton had acquired during the boom years of the 1920s.
By 1931, his creditors were threatening to foreclose, his laundry was in hock, and he was borrowing money from a bellboy so he could eat. That year, Hilton came across a photograph of the Waldorf Hotel with its six kitchens, 200 cooks, 500 waiters, 2000 rooms, and its private hospital and private railroad siding in the basement. Hilton clipped the photograph out of the magazine and wrote across it, "The Greatest of Them All."
The year 1931 was "a presumptuous, an outrageous time to dream," Hilton later wrote. But he put the photo of the Waldorf in his wallet, and when he had a desk again, slipped the picture under the glass top. From then on it was always in front of him. As he worked his way back up and acquired new bigger desks, he would slip the cherished photo under the glass. Eighteen years later, in October 1949, Conrad Hilton acquired the Waldorf.
That picture gave Hilton's dream shape and substance. There was something for his mind to focus upon. It became a cue for his behavior.
How focused are you on achieving your goal? Is it an obsession?
Do you write your goal every day? You need to. Writing your goal daily is an act of commitment that slowly turns you into a guided missile that can't miss.
Do you surround yourself with pictures of your goal? If your goal is to drive a Maserati, do you regularly test-drive Maseratis? Do you subscribe to Maserati Magazine? You need to.
Make it an Olympic Day!
Ruben Gonzalez is a four-time Olympian, a bestselling business author and an award-winning keynote speaker. Ruben will turn your next meeting into an Olympic event you will never forget. For information on how to bring him to your next event, visit PremiereSpeakers.com/Ruben_Gonzalez.