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Copyright © 1999-2011 AspireNow. All rights reserved. Want more? Subscribe to the A-Blog. Like it? Share on del.icio.us or Stumble Upon!

Taking Purposeful Chances To Succeed Wildly

I once took a vacation to New York City. While in New York on the first night, we went to Iridium, a jazz club in downtown Manhattan, to hear a terrific trumpter, Wallace Roney, perform with his band. It was fabulous!

Yet, while our original plan was to entertain ourselves at the jazz club, we left the latter portion of the evening wide-open to adventure into Times Square and whatever else might catch our attention. After our fun photo shoot in Times Square, what ended up catching my attention was a bar called St. Andrews. Well, with my last name being "Andrews" how could I possibly resist? Three words for St. Andrews: "Scotch lovers heaven."

Another story I read about today featured Dewitt Jones, a nationally popular photographer with National Geographic, who shared that one of his greatest shots came from a random moment. He was experiencing a rough day where none of his shots were turning out interesting. So, he made a random chance choice to just shoot whatever was in front of him. At first, he took pictures of the parking lot, grass, shrubbery. But these pictures led him to a path, which he followed. He continued to shoot, then at the top of the path, emerged onto a vista. From that point, he shot an amazing photo of a lake nestled between the hills of mountains and surrounded by autumn leaves, mist rising from the surface from the dawn air, with two fishermen sitting serenely in their boat with lines cast gently in the water.

A point Dewitt Jones teaches is that you can have MULTIPLE RIGHT ANSWERS by simply SHIFTING YOUR PERSPECTIVE.



What I love about this video is how Dewitt shows how preparedness combined with random chance ends up creating an opportunity to be nationally famous. Perspective often becomes EXTRAORDINARY when we SHIFT our POINT OF VIEW.

Be prepared, then try shifting a few minor details, and see how it impacts your life. If it improves, shift a little more, until you find something AMAZING.
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Copyright © 1999-2011 AspireNow. Video Copyright © Dewitt Jones. All rights reserved. Want more? Subscribe to the A-Blog. Like it? Share on del.icio.us or Stumble Upon!

A Message From The Other Side

I presided over a gathering to remember my dear friend, Shari Carr, who worked with Tony Robbins, Bob Proctor, Harv Eker, and many other greats in the self-help industry. Shari was a connecting rod who knew and loved so many people, and she passed away during the July 4th weekend this year.

While I will refrain from sharing everything I spoke at the bonfire gathering in Avila Beach (I did post this as a note on my Facebook wall), I will share words from a conversation that took place today. Another good friend, Steve Burgess, who has helped me with data forensics work and saved my data off my broken/corrupted computer on more than one occasion, spoke with me about Shari's gathering, as he is a mutual friend who also shared many experiences with Shari.

After we discussed this a bit on Facebook IM, he sent me these words:

"I just sat and looked/listened to see if I had a message from Shari to you. Here's what I got: 'It's enough that you loved me. It's enough that you cared for me. All caring is love. What else is there that matters? Nothing.' And then a blown kiss."

When I read this my eyes burst with tears. But these are not tears of sadness, but tears of joy: joy for having known and been blessed by this loving person, joy for knowing my own journey even more clearly through her passing - as if a torch of light was passed to me, reinvigorating me in my mission, and joy for the experience of loving others and the chance to GET it RIGHT.

There is something profoundly wise about this statement Shari made to me from the other side: 

"All caring is love. What else is there that matters? Nothing."

Do you realize what a beautiful place your true spirit IS when it is connected to source?

In the words of the poet/musician, Ben Harper, "you look like GOLD."

Like the greatest joy at a music concert, the happiness during birth of a baby, the smiles and laughter of children laughing, the thrill of diving into clear, warm, Hawaii water, the excitement of a perfectly baked piece of pie, the release of sexual satisfaction, the deep smile in the eyes of a loved one, the rays of sunshine coming through the clouds, the gently blowing breeze, the soft nuzzle from a puppy's nose, the playful rub from a kitten's tail, and so many other beautiful things we experience... imagine these in pure spirit form. In this form, you realize, it is ALL LOVE.

I believe Shari is right. All caring is love. What else is there that matters?

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Picture (above) is Shari with Anthony Robbins at a Tony Robbins event, possibly Copyright Shari Carr and Anthony Robbins (this was on her Facebook wall, and used with previous permission). Copyright © 1999-2011 AspireNow. All rights reserved. Want more? Subscribe to the A-Blog. Like it? Share on del.icio.us or Stumble Upon!

How Great People Persuade Others

You may have noticed that the greatest people in the world often rise up to positions of leadership because of their mastery over their communication skills. Clearly, proficiency in one's native tongue is an essential key to success. As such, it is wise to learn as much as you can about the best ways to communicate.

One of the forms of communication vital to success in any endeavor is that of persuasion.

Considering many of the World's greatest leaders needed to persuade others to a cause, whether Gandhi, Churchill, Lincoln, or even the negative leaders like Hitler, they were ALL considered masters of persuasion.

Yet, how did they persuade?

I'll give you a quick secret: through telling stories.

Most great leaders were also great story tellers. A story can convey a point better than any other plea. In studying the Chief Executive in corporate America back in the late 1990's, I discovered that almost EVERY CEO I heard speak would use more metaphor and story telling in their speeches than statistics, financial figures, or other mundane details about their company, market, or competition. Why? Because they knew that we are motivated through something we understand and relate to - both on a physical, emotional, and spiritual level.

When Churchill needed to persuade, he spoke in metaphor. Part of what helped John F. Kennedy win election as President was his earlier "story" published about his PT-109 experiences during the war. Lincoln often told stories to his generals to encourage them to noble action. In fact, almost every great movie we view in the theater FIRST starts as a novel or screenplay - in essence, a story.

So, learn to tell stories. Use metaphors, and see if your ability to persuade and lead others does not improve with the growth.

Have you had success through telling stories? Drop me a note and share how!
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Copyright © 1999-2011 AspireNow. All rights reserved. Want more? Subscribe to the A-Blog. Like it? Share on del.icio.us or Stumble Upon!

What's The Meaning of Life?

"We are but a small spec of sand in the grand cosmos of the Universe. Yet, we matter, we love and are loved, we are spirits with wings to fly and soar past the seeming giants looming before us, leaving them as smaller specks in the distance. What we see with our eyes fades away but what is unseen lasts forever."

I just finished posting this to my Facebook wall after writing a three page letter to read at a gather for my friend who passed away during Fourth of July weekend celebrations. This friend was also a self-help colleague; in fact, she worked with Tony Robbins for a number of years. 

After writing the letter, the first thing I wanted to do was share with you at AspireNow. No, I haven't forgotten you. I've just been busy working on several launches this past year. First, for other companies, second, for ARRiiVE, creating first Cold to Gold, then Intelligent Social Networking,  and lately also for SLO Jazz Festival. 

But, through all of this, my core belief system that I must share a message of hope, faith, and love perseveres. I do know I am supposed to write books, speak, and share what I've learned about life, overcoming challenges, and love. I am supposed to share it with many thousands of people. 

So, I will. I am recommitting to at least posting SOMETHING here at the blog on a daily basis, to the extent possible. Wish me luck, but for sure please comment, share with friends, and pass the word along!

Thanks for sticking with AspireNow - can you believe it has been TEN YEARS!? Exciting! Maybe we'll throw a little party to celebrate! haha...

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Copyright © 1999-2011 AspireNow. All rights reserved. Want more? Subscribe to the A-Blog. Like it? Share on del.icio.us or Stumble Upon!

The Great Mississipi Flood of 2011

Dear AspireNow Readers:

In America, we are currently experiencing "the Great Mississipi flood of 2011" - flood waters are the highest they've been in a hundred years. The choice was made yesterday to open the floodgates, and therefore flood thousands of acres, including several towns and over 25,000 homes. In addition, millions of farmland acres will end up under water to save the City of New Orleans. As we all know, post-Katrina New Orleans does NOT need further flooding. The corps of engineers blew up a levee in Missouri to spare Tennessee and Kentucky, and other levies are being pressed like never before in history. This disaster is affecting thousands of homeowners in Missouri, Tennessee, Kansas, Mississipi, and Louisiana, especially.

Above photo: Mississipi floodgates opening to relieve pressure downstream, flooding thousands of homes and over a million acres. (provided by Reuters)

As such, I am getting involved and asking each of you to ACT NOW to help our friends in Mississipi and along the Mississipi river valley regions.

Here's how you can help:

1. Please post the "Thank you for giving your home to save NOLA" picture as your profile picture on your social networks. If you also post the following message: "Thank you, for those of you who just lost your farm, your home.... may God bless you and America! Please join me in POSTING this PIC as your profile, and DONATING NOW to help those in need. ♥" from AspireNow.com.

2. Please post the following message when you SHARE this PROFILE PICTURE:
How to help: 1) Post this pic as YOUR profile pic, w/text description. 2) TEXT to 90999 "REDCROSS" to donate $10. (if you can send more, details for your check are at http://rdcrss.org/lyzrML ). 3) SHARE the pic link w/friends, including this message. THANK YOU for giving and making a difference - 25,000+ homeowners & farmers NEED your support NOW! ♥ from http://www.AspireNow.com/

3. Share with your friends.

At minimum, please share this article post link with your friends, so that as many people can be exposed to help those in need at this time. Thank you!

With love,
Scott Andrews, Founder of AspireNow

Send text to 90999 with "REDCROSS" to make your donation and help now.
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Copyright © 1999-2011 AspireNow. All rights reserved. Want more? Subscribe to the A-Blog. Like it? Share on del.icio.us or Stumble Upon!

Transform Criticism Into Positive Results

If you are a typical human being, you are probably bombarded with criticism in one way or another through various times in your life. Criticism comes from many sources: family, friends, strangers, enemies, and even our own self. In fact, often, we are our own worst critics.

I hope this saying resonates with you:

Criticism cannot upset you unless you agree with it.

Think about that. Is it possible that you are AGREEING with the voice(s)? If so, why?

How many times are we criticised without merit? Does that person really know us? Are they putting us down to build themselves up? Or, just being hard for the sake of it because their life sucks? What is their motive? Does it even MATTER?

Those who fail often have 80% or more negative self-talk. Whatever the reasons, we fare better if we SHIFT the negative voice to POSITIVE voice. Instead of saying to yourself "I'm not good enough" or "I'm too fat" or "I'm not handsome enough" or "I'm not pretty enough" or "my speaking voice isn't good enough" or "People won't care what I think" or all these crazy thoughts that come in our head or we might have heard at some point - replace these with the following:

People care about me.
I am superbly capable.
I am just right.
People will respond to me.
My voice can project and be heard.

You get the idea? If you catch yourself criticising - STOP. Write down the negative thought. And counter-balance it immediately with the oppositve, POSITIVE thought. Write that down and start repeating that NEW POSITIVE THOUGHT to yourself. Here's the new mantra that you can use to transform your life:

SHIFT WHAT YOU SAY TO SUPPORT YOURSELF, LOVE YOURSELF, and BELIEVE IN YOURSELF, AND YOUR LIFE IMPROVES.

Those who are most successful have 80% positive thoughts and self-talk. So, make the shift, right now, and watch your own life change for the better.
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Copyright © 1999-2011 AspireNow. All rights reserved. Want more? Subscribe to the A-Blog.

The Blessing of the Polymath

Have you ever had someone say to you to "Pick one thing, and do it very well"?

Frankly, it is EXCELLENT advice. But, if you are anything like me, you probably find that doing just ONE thing – even well – is not enough to satisfy your thirst to explore life, entrepreneurialism, art, and whatever else your dream up doing next.

I was describing this to a friend, who told me "Scott, it sounds like you have the curse of the Renaissance Man." To which I replied, "Today, that would be called a POLYMATH. But I consider it a BLESSING."

I must clarify: it is only a blessing IF you actually SEE all the various sciences, art, and pleasures you dabble in through to some form of COMPLETION. It is good to multitask, but better to focus on one thing at a time.

Therefore, if you are like me, and just HAVE to explore all those options, perhaps it would behoove you to at least focus on that ONE activity – consider a time slice – so you do it well. It is critical to your success to excel at whatever vocation you pursue. If you must dabble, I would advise first mastering one skill or talent, then moving on to another. Otherwise you will have loose ends hanging everywhere. When I recently realized I had eight projects going but none to completion or fruition I immediately determined that I would work my tail off to either make each project successful or kill it. If you can, pick one thing and master it. Like the author who writes a book about one subject, that would be adviseable to many.

Now, in my own case, I did not do that. I dabbled in many things. If you go back to AspireNow's early days, I did not follow my gut advice and create a sales program first. I started by writing about life purpose, lifestyles, relationships, and business success – ALL at the same time. Did it work? It did not go nearly as big as I had imagined in the early years. This is because I did multiple things and chose topics in which I was not yet an expert. Although I now consider myself an expert on those topics, it took years of research and practical coaching to get there.

AspireNow WOULD have thrived much sooner had I followed David Ricklan's model at http://www.self-growth.com/, and set-up AspireNow as a portal to all the people who write about self-growth. I chose not to do that. Instead, I sought to make AspireNow more about my own perceptions and experiences from life. Well, today, David Ricklan has 300,000 Facebook friends following his Facebook page and as of this writing I have about 274 following mine. Lesson learned. We succeed by the choices we make.

It CAN be a blessing to be a polymath. The instance in which it is a blessing is when you SPEND THE TIME to get GREAT at what you do. If you are to be polymath, you must adapt a way to learn things very fast. Timothy Ferris, in his book The 4-Hour Workweek, claims to have mastered this super-learning process himself, as part of teaching himself multiple foreign language systems. I will add that it probably does not hurt that Tim is also very smart. Seriously, though, I need to talk with him about his system of learning, because I believe it would help any polymath be more successful. So, go ahead and do multiple things. Learn and develop systems to do them better, so you may accomplish proficiency faster. If you do this, you can be a polymath AND be successful in many of your pursuits.

The other challenge is that if instead of picking one thing and doing it well you instead choose multiple things to focus upon as your vocation, it may simply take you LONGER to get GREAT at all of them. I found this to be true for me. Jack Canfield, the co-author behind Chicken Soup for the Soul, the most popular book series of all time, shared on stage that he "struggled for years" before finding the magic combination of people and publicity and product to get the product out and successful. This is not unusual for the polymath who is an aspiring author or entrepreneur. Yet, Chicken Soup is not about one topic, but about many stories that warm the heart and soul of the reader. So, perhaps, Chicken Soup's success is a POLYMATH's dream come true and example that perseverance is key!

If you are going to play music, play it in a way that enables you to exceed expectation by mastering concepts. I mastered playing by ear, and playing the blues, but I still make mistakes on the saxophone. I may not understand the theory as well as I could, or I might have heard a series of notes incorrectly while quickly learning a song. The average musician and listener may miss the mistakes, but trust me when I tell you the professional will not miss anything out of sorts. Recently, at a Burning James band rehearsal with Terry Lawless, keyboardist for U2, Terry asked us "Does the sax part go like Scott is playing it, or like the way the rest of you guys play it?" I gave Terry credit for his classy way of saying "Scott, you are playing the wrong notes, man!" Make no mistake about it, the professional will ALWAYS know where your mistakes are at – the only question remaining is whether he will call you out on the mistakes he hears.

It was the same for me with learning Salsa dancing; when a masterful Afro-Cuban dancer came to guest teach a class at my local dance club. She immediately saw my steps and said "No, try this.” Then, she showed me the proper movement. I later asked her if she was good at swing dancing, too. She said, "No, I pretty much just do Salsa dancing. I enjoy it the most, and can compete at a high level with Salsa." In her case, perhaps she picked one thing and did it well. Yet, if you notice, on Dancing with the Stars, they make each dancer do many forms of dancing, so it may be a sign of a developed dancer to learn steps and form to more than one form of dancing. Me? I am just trying to get past the beginner level at swing OR salsa! It is hard when you play music, as often when they are dancing you need to play music. Choices, right?

As an entrepreneur, if you are creative, you will dream up many new ideas that you COULD develop into a company or new product. The question is to pick a number that you can MANAGE CAPABLY. In fact, at GE, the CEO once made a statement "If we cannot be #1 or #2 in each product category we compete, then we will kill that product." The leader made a point "we must excel at what we do." So, make your choices wisely. Pick the products, businesses, hobbies, and interests you love and can achieve success in the most.

Then, bust your butt to be the very best at those interests. Often, the person who rises to the top is not the one with the most talent, but the one with the most heart and drive to stay at it when everyone else went home. In the end, perhaps this is the secret to the BLESSING of the Polymath. Maybe to be the best at multiple things will require you to work longer, avoid time-wasting activities, and maximize each activity to the fullest through laser-like focus.

What do you say about being a polymath? What makes you successful? Please share in the comments link!
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Copyright © 1999-2011 AspireNow. All rights reserved.

10 Questions To Change Your Life

Scott Andrews, Founder of AspireNow, announces a new webinar series from AspireNow, entitled "10 Questions to Change Your Life"

10 Questions to Change Your Life Webinar/Teleseminar Description:
Questions affect the way we process, think, learn, act, listen, speak, and relate to others. Questions we ask ourselves and each other drive every action we make. Questions can push us to learn more, be more, do more, have more, and love our life far more... to explore, adventure, and learn.

The future begins right now – it starts with the questions we ask ourselves.

In this powerful 1 hour free webinar you will learn the 10 Questions to Change Your Life, along with exciting ways to implement these questions to full impact:

* Receive secrets from Scott's "Life Purpose" program and decade of coaching!
* Learn ways people sabotage success...find out what not to do!
* Gain insights from masters...grow wisdom to learn how to really know your self and live your dreams.
* Discover the differences between surviving and THRIVING... what do the happiest people do different?
* Why NOW?...Discover how you can begin right now from wherever you are to improve your life.
* Maximize success... Find out how the richest people make more in far less time than you might think!
* And more!
Make sure to SIGN UP NOW to RESERVE YOUR SEAT ON THE WEBINAR and MARK YOUR CALENDAR:

Date: February 14, 2011
Time: 11:00 a.m. - Noon PST.
Cost: No Cost - Limited Time Only!*

NOTE: SPACE LIMITED ON THIS WEBINAR TO 25 SEATS, FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED:
SIGN-UP HERE FOR THE WEBINAR INVITATION CODE:

http://www.aspirenow.com/10_questions_webinar_signup_page.htm

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Copyright © 1999-2011 AspireNow. All rights reserved. Want more? Subscribe to the A-Blog. Like it? Share on del.icio.us or Stumble Upon!