"Your ability to delay gratification in the short-term will determine your financial success in the long-term."

Brian Tracy
************************************************
POTENTIALIZE YOUR OPPORTUNITIES

by Mark Victor Hansen
I remember watching the movie "Dead Poet's Society" when it was first released in the theatres. Robin Williams's character is a professor who wants his students to think for themselves, so he makes them stand on top of their desks to view things in a different way. That really stuck with me.

When you think about it, people hardly ever look at the world through their own eyes. They get their information filtered through the eyes of others, whether they're the eyes of the media, politicians, friends or family. But what looks like one thing to someone may look totally different to someone else. To really see what's going on in the world, to see what opportunities exist for us, we have to see the world through our own eyes in our own way.

We all need to recognize and potentialize opportunities when we see them. What do I mean by potentialize? When something has potential it has power, it expresses possibility, it is influential and effective.

As we go through each day we should be on the lookout for any situation that expresses possibility. Any situation. To attain the success you desire you have to recognize possibility everywhere and then stretch and flex your mind to create million-dollar ideas. And you're not limited to just one. The more you practice seeing the possible in daily life, the better you will become. Then you take those small possibilities and potentialize them and create great monetary abundance.

We all have the ability to potentialize opportunities and create phenomenal wealth. And the amazing thing is that there are multiple possibilities for potentalizing in every situation! Just because someone comes up with a new way to do something doesn't mean that there isn't yet another way to do it. We have each been blessed with individual characteristics and abilities that no one else has. We each have our own special way of doing things. And that means we each have the ability to potentialize in our own unique way.

'Be grateful for your problems, for they stimulate an 'I-can-solve-it' new attitude.'

Mark Victor Hansen
************************************************

"The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time."

Abraham Lincoln
**************************************************
"Anything that you should have done, but didn't, ties you to your past"

Is your mental and emotional clutter getting in the way of a fulfilling life? It's time to clean out the "need-to's," "have-to's," and "ought-to's," from your past. When you have regrets it's tough to move forward and grow.

Put the past in the past. Return anything you borrowed. Make apologies where needed. Get your bills up to date. Send the card or gift that you forgot to send. Make the phone call you need to make.

Taking care of these things cleans your mental slate and eliminates any regrets or resentments you may harbor.

Now, take a deep breath; look ahead. Both your conscience, and your future vision, is clear.

Meditations For Women
*************************************************

"Make your decisions for your tomorrows not just your todays."

Patricia Fripp

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.

Hans Hofmann
*******************************************************
ACHIEVING YOUR DREAMS

by Jim Rohn

While most people spend most of their lives struggling to earn a living, a much smaller number seem to have everything going their way. Instead of just earning a living, the smaller group is busily working at building and enjoying a fortune. Everything just seems to work out for them. And here sits the much larger group, wondering how life can be so unfair, so complicated and unjust. What's the major difference between the little group with so much and the larger group with so little?

Despite all of the factors that affect our lives - like the kind of parents we have, the schools we attended, the part of the country we grew up in - none has as much potential power for affecting our futures as our ability to dream.

Dreams are a projection of the kind of life you want to lead. Dreams can drive you. Dreams can make you skip over obstacles. When you allow your dreams to pull you, they unleash a creative force that can overpower any obstacle in your path. To unleash this power, though, your dreams must be well defined. A fuzzy future has little pulling power. Well-defined dreams are not fuzzy. Wishes are fuzzy. To really achieve your dreams, to really have your future plans pull you forward, your dreams must be vivid.

If you've ever hiked a fourteen thousand-foot peak in the Rocky Mountains, one thought has surely come to mind "How did the settlers of this country do it?" How did they get from the East Coast to the West Coast? Carrying one day's supply of food and water is hard enough. Can you imagine hauling all of your worldly goods with you... mile after mile, day after day, month after month? These people had big dreams. They had ambition. They didn't focus on the hardship of getting up the mountain.

In their minds, they were already on the other side – their bodies just hadn't gotten them there yet! Despite all of their pains and struggles, all of the births and deaths along the way, those who made it to the other side had a single vision: to reach the land of continuous sunshine and extraordinary wealth. To start over; where anything and everything was possible. Their dreams were stronger than the obstacles in their way.

You've got to be a dreamer. You've got to envision the future. You've got to see California while you're climbing fourteen thousand-foot peaks. You've got to see the finish line while you're running the race. You've got to hear the cheers when you're in the middle of a monster project. And you've got to be willing to put yourself through the paces of doing the uncomfortable until it becomes comfortable and until you realize your dreams.

To Your Success,

Jim Rohn
*******************************************************

If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system.

William James
********************************************************
Would you think differently about your problems if they were not yours, but instead were being experienced by someone else? Consider for a moment the most difficult problem you currently face. Now, imagine that you're not the person experiencing the problem, that you're only an observer.
In such a situation, what advice would you give to the person experiencing the problem? Would you advise that person to become depressed? Of course not. Would you advise that person to run and hide from the problem? Certainly not! Would you advise that person to take positive, productive, sustained actions that will deal with the problem? Sure you would.
So, is that what you're doing? Are you following your own advice? Or have you allowed the problem to take over your thinking?
Your problems do not define you. You can detach yourself from them just as surely as if they were being experienced by someone else. Step back and look objectively at the challenges you face. Don't allow your problems to cloud your thinking just because you're the person who happens to be experiencing them. Think clearly, act decisively and keep moving yourself positively forward.
Ralph Marston
********************************************************

"If you're laser beam focused on your "to do" list at the expense of seeing what is happening around you, you may be able to check items off the list and not meet your desired outcome."

Jim Canterucci