Success: A Different Measure

By Claus Bockmann

In our modern world, success is mostly regarded in terms of success in a profession, prestige, power, show business and material wealth. Claus looks at success with different eyes. Whilst he covers success factors such as goal setting, attitude, belief and motivation - as he worked in sales for some years - he also regards success in a more immaterial, unusual way. Success has to do with accepting life, living with our shadow side and developing humane qualities like compassion and non-judgment. Overcoming a crisis, coping with change, leading a more meditative life, working with abundance and adopting a perspective of love, instead of fear - all these can be seen as success. Claus brings his unique perspective on success gained from experience as a sales person as well as a hypnotherapist and spiritual healer. Above all, though, his view comes from experiencing and observing life - many examples of people and their situations enrich the book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raider Publishing International
• Release date: Aug 24, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466177093

Book preview

Success – A Different Measure

By Claus Bockmann

Published by Raider Publishing International a Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Claus Bockmann

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

Contents

Introduction

Success, What Does It Mean?

What Can Make Success Possible?

Taking Stock

Setting Goals

Intention, the Strength Behind Your Goals

Focus Your Attention

Beliefs Underpin Everything

He Has the Wrong Attitude

Why Does This All Work? A Potential Answer!

Motivation Keeps Us Going!

Motivation in Sales: Winner Today, Loser Tomorrow

Success – Measured Differently

Success Through Accepting Life and Death, Ourselves and Others

Success to the World – Your Qualities Within

Success Just by Engaging with Life

Success in Life By Coping With a Crisis!

Living off the Land

Life and Success – Predestined or Result of Our Efforts?

Success By Overcoming the Feeling of Suffering!

Let it Happen – Make it Happen

Choices and Changes – Success in Process

Change, Life and Stress – Success in Leading a Less Stressful Life

Success By Developing a Meditative Approach to Life

Our Spiritual Health

Success in Achieving Happiness and Joy in Our Life

Fear into Love – the Ultimate Success

Love As an Agent of Change

Healing our Perspective – Success in Healingthe World

Success for Yourself – Success for the World

The Push for Change – Success in Action

Living in Abundance

Synchronicity in Our Life

Abundance and Success as a Way of Life

A Perspective of Love as a Way of Life

Serving Others as a Way of Life

About the Author

Introduction

Success has been a subject of interest for centuries. We look up to successful figures in history and take inspiration from their work and lives. Success these days is mostly connected to material success; success in the work place and careers. Film stars and celebrities, millionaires and entrepreneurs, people who achieve extraordinary feats, soldiers and doctors or sportsmen like footballers seem to inspire people.

The other day, I saw the final of a talent show on TV. All the finalists were explaining why they did not want it to end, to lose. As one of them said, I have to give it my all, need to perform my best today. I do not want it to end. My work as an accountant is so boring. I cannot go back to my old job. As I have come so far, I need to win. The other comments were very similar.

The winner takes everything. These days, TV shows remind us we could become a winner. Shows like American Idol or the X Factor, might make us wish to become a star, someone special. These shows recommend a simple recipe— just see your success, work hard, believe in yourself, and you can become a star.

Once we are stars, we can leave our normal lives behind, lives we might deem as boring and non-inspirational. The underlying message seems to be that we can all turn our lives around, once we are stars. Spinning these stories a bit further, we might not become a star, but success is ours, if we only want it. If we do not succeed, it is put down to our wish for success not being strong enough. Would we have been successful, if we had wished for our success more fervently? If only we had stuck with our dreams and aspirations more strongly!

But is that really true? Are we just following a pipe dream, according to an agreed formula? And if we try, and we do not succeed, does that mean we are losers? In our society, a loser gets nothing. It is not just young people who are lured into thinking that one only needs to believe in oneself to succeed, to work hard, to keep going. Some people might have become disillusioned with life, bored and unhappy with their circumstances. This is not to say that believing in ourselves cannot lead to success. Of course, applying ourselves, hard work, perseverance and an unshakable belief, can indeed lead to success. But what then? Does success mean that all boredom, frustration, disillusion will disappear? Of course not.

What does success lead to? A happy life ever after? Research into happiness has shown that winners of the lottery returned to their previous level of happiness or misery after only one year. Some of them even squandered their money. There is no proof that rich people are any happier. It is said that often they're mostly concerned about losing their money. It seems to me that often, once we achieve something and have success, we want more. And once we have more, even more is desired. We enter a never ending cycle of dissatisfaction with the now, with our current life. We are not just talking about money and abundance here. There is status and reputation, the power to influence others, or to lead an interesting, varied and colorful life. We want everything except being normal, ordinary. Let us develop the questions of success and failure, to look at the potential pitfalls of success, and, above all, the perspective we might want to have on success and failure. We might find a perspective that will allow us to be successful, to feel successful in our own way. At the same time, keep a level of satisfaction, and have inner peace and a sense of well being and happiness. There is no perfect recipe, and this book does not offer a perfect solution. Life is not like this. But it can develop questions, open a perspective of life being a process, including success and abundance. It might help towards a perspective of love and service. Or it just encourages thinking and changing. We can only ever adopt an approach that is appropriate for each of us.

Success, What Does It Mean?

Success can be seen as

a level of social status

achievement of an objective/goal

the opposite of failure

the succession of successfully executed tasks and successes

Overall, it comes in many different forms for different people. For some, success is status and prestige, for others it is money and possessions. For some of us, we are successful if we master a difficult situation or if we overcome a loss or just continue to be calm and peaceful despite strongly adverse situations in life. We might see examples of success when we watch television or read the news. Someone has won a medal, or another person has won a lottery or strongly increased the profits of a company, or won a competition like American Idol and their song goes to number one in the charts. Privately, we are often more modest. We feel successful when we become a father, are promoted in our job, finally manage to tidy up the garden or win the heart of a beloved person.

All of us can find a measure of success in our lives; it all depends on our interpretation. Maybe, it is how we deal with our success that makes a difference for the positive or the negative. If we assume that success needs to lead to more success and then more after that, we might enter a continuous cycle of pressure to succeed. With it, success might need to become ever stronger to be regarded as such, like an addict who needs an ever stronger dose of his fix.

On the other hand, we might be able to regard success as one side of the coin, knowing that life will present further challenges to overcome. Because of that, we might want to develop a perspective that will help us to feel safe and peaceful no matter what lies ahead of us.

What can make us Successful?

Success can be a result of an attitude and approach to a certain belief in life. There are many approaches that can illustrate this.

Jean

Jean is a healer who consults tarot cards constantly. For her, life is predestined. Jean interprets what happens in her life and from that she concludes what possible action she should take, what is meant to happen. Tarot cards show her what is on the cards. Tarot cards, astrology and numerology, all appeal to her. They are consulted on a regular basis. Most days are spent with some kind of consultation to decipher the right course of action. Jean believes everything in her life comes at the right time. When she is ready, events and people conspire to make things happen. She can just react to these events in her life by taking action once she is clear about them. Her belief reinforces her attitude, and events are interpreted according to her belief system. Her attitude towards life is more passive. As a therapist and healer, she does not take much action on marketing and advertising her services. She just lets a few people know about her services. Her reputation as a therapist grows and, with time, more and more clients are knocking on her door. Her belief system is confirmed by the events in her life.

Jack

Jack leads an international sales team for a US-company. He has worked hard to become a senior director and has weekly, monthly goals he works on constantly. He reviews these goals and visualises them daily. His internal dialogue, the way he talks and thinks to himself, is positive. It orbits around achieving targets as well as personal goals, like his yearly salary, a bigger house, a brand new car. He also believes in taking daily action. He sits in meditation several times a week to refocus his mind and recharge his batteries. When he learned that meditation can help with focus and concentration and in achieving goals, he took on board a new system, without having had an underlying belief to this effect.

Jack is determined to achieve his goals. At the same time, all goals are seen in terms of practical applications of success and abundance in life. Jack does not believe in any metaphysical ideas. For him, religion is opium for the masses. When it comes to success, abundance and making things happen, Jack completely believes in creating his own destiny. When things do not go his way, he often vents his anger and disappointment on his team. For him, success and abundance are a creation of his efforts. Whilst he thinks his thoughts, beliefs and actions determine his success, he has no conscious awareness concerning his emotions.

Hardly ever does he consider his emotional outbursts as anything but normal. He does not feel overly responsible for his feelings, as they seem to go along with the pressure of the job and life. Jack does not regard his outbursts as a problem. His anger and frustration are used to apply pressure on his sales team. Success justifies anything! He keeps a daily log of phone times of his Inside Sales Team. With this, he frequently reminds his team they are not picking up the phone often enough.

Tim

Tim is a member of the team. When he finished his first quarter at 51% of his target, he jokingly proclaimed he was the 50%-man. In this way, he distracted from the fact that his colleagues achieved much higher numbers. He finished his second quarter at 52% and his third one at 49%. After the fourth quarter at 52%, alarm bells went off with Jack and the management team. In repeated discussions, it was put to Tim that his idea about himself as being a 50%-man must have to do with fear of achievement. He did not pick up the phone often enough and he should work towards setting and achieving proper goals. Within a short time, Tim turned his situation around. He constantly set himself goals and worked towards them. Success started to happen, and with it came his belief in success. Gradually, Tim improved his numbers.

Three different examples, all of them appropriate to the person. But would Jean have become an even more successful therapist more quickly had she advertised and marketed herself? Jean might never know the feeling of personal achievement by having rolled up her sleeves and working hard. The kind of feeling we can achieve by applying ourselves consistently and then seeing the result of our hard labour. Overcoming personal struggle could have strengthened her self-confidence. She could have practiced, embodied and experienced the quality of determination, resolve and stamina.

As for Jack and Tim, would their successes have happened anyway, because Jack is a natural leader, and has a talent for sales, or because market conditions would have picked up for Tim in any case? Could Jack have learned to trust himself and his sales team more? He knows that working with his tools— goal setting, visualisations, and working on his internal dialogue have already brought success and abundance into his life. With a little jump of faith, trusting his abilities, he could start believing that life in general is looking after him.

That could enable him to be more patient with himself and his team. When we think, feel and believe everything is completely up to our own efforts, we can feel lonely. Any need for change, would have to be balanced against the needs of the company through, his position as sales director. Whilst this might not be easy it could happen in stages. Life as a term here could be replaced by the universe, God, fate or good fortune, or just a belief that fundamentally we are safe.

There is no definite answer. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. There is a saying that whether you believe you can do it or not, you are right. The same can be applied to any belief system we apply at any time in our lives. Life will also give us feedback to show us whether we are on the right track or not. What might the factors be that allow us to manifest what we want? What factors would be important for that? Which qualities