Successful and Set for Life: Get Everything You Want in Life, Work, and Relationships

By Les J. Tripp MBA

The road to success never takes the path of least resistance and unfortunately often comes at the expense of peace of mind and personal values. With influences from mass media changing the definition of success every day, we must all look deep within to identify what success means to each of us and then utilize that information to overcome obstacles, realize freedom, and attain goals.

Les Tripp relies on his diverse experience as an economics professor, investment consultant, and motivational speaker to help others seek a higher purpose, aspire to greatness, and stay focused. Through anecdotes, inspirational sayings, and an organized step-by-step plan, Les leads individuals to

create a personal mission statement;

transform limiting thoughts into positive equivalents;

embrace education;

ask the right questions;

learn the value of each chapter in life; and

make choices that align with goals.

Successful and Set for Life shares practical advice, tips, and tools that will empower and guide success seekers down a new path to achieving all their personal and professional dreams.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 27, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491771693

Les J. Tripp MBA

Les J. Tripp is a college professor teaching business and economics courses; a motivational speaker and president of a private investment company. In addition he has authored and teaches a course in entrepreneur finance. He earned a bachelor of science in Computer Systems from Morgan State University and an master of business administration in Finance from the University of Phoenix. Les is the author of Debt Free and Set for Life and has residences in Sunrise, Florida and Baltimore, Maryland.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Born to Win

You are the most positive influence in your life, and you were born to win.

We were all born to win. God, or whoever you believe was your creator, could not have conceived such tremendous success in creating humankind through failure. Unfortunately, we have been mostly conditioned to fail.

Thousands of negative reinforcements are supplanted into our minds each day as we are being conditioned for failure. We are reinforced with thoughts of poverty, despair, crime, and murder. The media illustrates that our best chance of success comes from winning the lottery. Implanted in our minds is the idea that those beautiful people on television have the kinds of lives that we wish we were having. With all this garbage bombarding us daily, is it any surprise that most people have what they believe is a natural tendency against the right to aspire? Who believes that we can be all that we can be when we see the world so filled with despair? (I will discuss this later in the book.) Our acceptance and constant viewing of negative news is part of a survival technique that has kept us alive—ever since we lived in caves and did not carry credit cards. When we travel to foreign countries, we see American equipment, such as Caterpillar construction’s heavy equipment, building cities. This is because of a great idea that started in someone’s head—someone like you. The difference may be that that person pursued his or her idea and asked what the next step should be. In many cases, you have not started yet. Everyone reading this has the potential for great success. Many will move forward; many will not move forward. Which camp you choose to be in is your decision.

In America, the greatest country on earth, during the greatest time on the planet, most people are being conditioned to fail. They use less than 10 percent of their potential and excel only on a limited basis. What a travesty of human potential! I think that I have unlocked the secret to human potential and have found the key to how you can succeed in ways beyond the wildest concepts of most people. I think I understand why most men live lives of quiet desperation and only a few people live lives beyond their dreams.

A natural question to ask at this point would be, why? One possible answer is that you have become more comfortable with rationalizing and a lack of success. After all, most people do not achieve all that they set out to achieve, so you are in good company called the masses. The human condition is naturally evolving and naturally seeking only to survive, but you are seeking to live. You would not be reading this book if you did not seek more than what your life has to offer.

Your decision to separate yourself from the masses, to acknowledge that most men and women lead lives of quiet despair, and to aspire to greatness is your birthright. No one can deny you that but you. Begin today to reprogram your thoughts. Begin today the journey that many before you have taken. The path is not new, the journey is not unknown, and the answer is just as simple as the question. How do you become more than you are? How do you seek higher goals and a higher purpose? The truth is that you become what you think. We will explore that in the next few chapters, reflecting on and strengthening the most universal law.

In capitalistic societies, the natural progression of people creates those who rise to challenges and those who are challenged but choose not to raise their level of progress. For now, you have wisely chosen to read this book, which, when interpreted wisely, will begin to free you from the constraints of thinking, bringing you to the application of a technique that has worked for many successful salespeople.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams and live the life you have imagined.

—Thoreau

Action Steps

• Create a calendar logbook of your positive activities. For each day, at the end of the day, write down what you did to move yourself in the direction of your goals, dreams, and ambitions. At the end of the week and the month, you will have a chronological history of the events that you created to move toward your goals. Nothing is too large or too small. We often forget that success is measured by the many little events we have day by day that lead to some big pictures. This is your log to acknowledge what you have done!

• Write down your twenty-five-word mission statement that expresses why you are put here to win.

This is my statement, which I have had since I was a kid: In good health and spirits, I make millions helping others achieve higher goals … Simple, direct, and to the point. Easy enough to remember, repeat, and put in my wallet and in the bathroom. This is the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing at night. Milton once said that the mind can be a place of heaven or hell. Your mind, like mine, needs constant reminders to stay on the right path. If left alone with the privacy of your thoughts, you may naturally dwell on ideas and concepts that may not take you higher. We often call these concepts the daily news. A very negative environment filled with people who do not aspire may surround you. Your first challenge may be to find the air pockets that can keep you living and thriving until you can find your place. My air pockets were always libraries and bookstores. I was always able to surround myself with autobiographies and books of people who started out with many challenges and moved forward to change the world. You too can change the world—sometimes one book, one work, or one effort at a time.

Action: Write down your twenty-five-word mission statement:

A good life is a series of positive events each day that are bound together …

—Guy Salmon

CHAPTER 2

Think Positive

Positive thinking makes us successful in life, in relationships, in business, and in every aspect of human activity. All success starts with the thought of success. Sometimes successful thinking is buried in a bed of uncertainty and an undeveloped psyche, yet success still shines through. Fortunately, our positive thoughts are ten times more powerful than our uncertainties.

We did not know that those positive thoughts were so prevalent for the successful person. Our successful identity works on auto pilot trying to get out and rise to the top. This force in our positive thinking cannot be denied no matter how negative the circumstances in which we find ourselves. We have all walked through the valley of negative people who did not want us to succeed, and we have still succeeded.

All activities start with thinking, dreaming, and personal aspirations. All actions start with a thought. We often confuse stress with lack of success. Too many times after a stressful week, I began the next workweek on Monday wondering if anything was going to get better. Although I have never had an unsuccessful week, there have been weeks where things did not fall in place as I expected, but most of my life has worked as I thought it would. You actually do get what you think about. Think success, and it will occur. Your dominant thoughts must be positive and success based.

When you focus on negative events of the world, you are creating the opportunity for those negative events to occur in your world. When you focus on positive events in your life, you are creating the potential for positive things to happen in your life. Learn to think positively during the peaceful and quiet moments of reflection, about where you are and where you want to go in life, and you will get there.

There are people who have overcome the most adverse circumstances, including disease and poverty, by changing the way they think. The world has many documented cases of individuals who, only through the power of their thoughts, changed their world and eventually the world around them.

Would you like to change the world? It starts with what you think about. The next level of thinking is dreaming. During the day, your thoughts about success, good health, and general well-being serve as the basis for your dreams at night.

Consider this: If you spent the whole day thinking about problems and scarcity, why would you have good dreams? The part of your life that you spend asleep should be filled with positive learning of the possibilities that may come true. Do not spend your time dreaming about your imagined limitations. You will dream about the success that will come to you eventually because your waking thoughts during the day are positive and purposeful. Do not despair all day and think this will not affect you at night.

Program yourself for success. The clearest example of this happened for me as a young teen. I spent several days playing chess against my computer and really focused on trying to win. My mini obsession carried over to my dreams. One night I dreamed about how I might win. The winning strategy came to me in my dreams because I programmed success into my thinking during my waking hours. I wondered if this thought transference would work for other things like car loans and starting a business.

My life is now the extension of positive thinking that has come to life. Each day and each year as I grow older and wiser through research, I am still surprised and overwhelmed about how well this works. Happier thoughts lead to a happier life and better experiences. I learned from Zig Ziglar that no matter who I was yesterday, I could change and become a new and different person tomorrow.

I cannot stress this point enough. I want to reach through the pages and grab you to let you know how strongly your thoughts affect your life. Too many times, we sit on the verge of a complete breakdown only to find by some miracle that the problems that envelop us work themselves out with reasonable success. This happens because deep in your own thinking, you truly believe that things will work out, and they do.

Why spend time wondering if things will work out? Why do we beat ourselves up so much when things eventually work out? I constantly did this until I made the connection that my thinking was actually coming true. I would mentally create the circumstances that were going to happen to me. I would deride myself with words, negative thoughts, and undue stress. I would wonder why I had made wrong decisions and when my luck would change. Sometimes I wondered if even God wanted me to fail, only to have some things that I worried about succeed.

Think about what price my thoughts took on my health and my psyche. Do not do this to yourself. Your ability to think positively in all circumstances broadcasts to everyone what you will encounter in or out of this life. You broadcast or project if you are worthy of this life and whether or not you should get the best that this world has to offer. America loves a winner, and no one wants to embrace a loser. Through the sheer power of your own thoughts, you can tell everyone you encounter which camp you are from. You tell everyone who can hear your smile through the phone or who can see you that you are a victor or victim, a true winner or a pretender.

The life process, much like success in life, begins with a single thought. A simple, positive expectation begins the life process.

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Life tip:

If you become your thoughts, ask yourself what you thought about today. Did you see yourself as a struggling college student or worker, heavily in debt and depressed, or did you see yourself as a winner making your path to a new realm of prosperity?

When you first woke up, did you think about bills or did you give thanks for all the positive things in your life?

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Programmed thinking example:

I would become an internationally published author with a portfolio worth millions of dollars. People would line up to take my classes and purchase my books as I plan for my migration into radio and television. I would complete one book a year as I work to catch up with some of my mentors who have written multiple books.

Hope is the most powerful form of positive thinking.

It has been said and acknowledged that hope is the difference between despair and success. One study of history reveals that some of the most desperate circumstances worldwide, of people suffering and listless situations, were eventually overcome because there was hope. Never give up. Always have hope and work each day to achieve your dreams.

The following are signs indicating you have forgotten the importance of hope:

• Depression and despair in your thinking. You are depressed, and there does not seem to be any way out. You think about the worst circumstances and focus on negative thoughts. This is the worst way in which you could look at your situation.

• Inaction. You just want to lie in bed and hide. Hiding does not accomplish much and actually does not make you feel better. There are times when you just need to avoid people and give yourself some space to think. People will always challenge and confront you. You have to be prepared for that.

• You stop doing the things you enjoy. Why are you depressed? Often because you think in worst-case scenarios and you act listlessly.

• Weather bothers you much more than usual. You keep suggesting that things will not work out or get better.

• You consider how life would be without you.

• You avoid your friends and family.

• Your writing, thinking, and actions become negative.

A loss of hope is generally mental. Follow these steps to change your thinking:

• The number-one method to get back on track and bring hope back into your life is to count your blessings. This literally means to write down and list the things, people, and accomplishments for which you are thankful.

• The second method to get back on track with hope is to change how you feel. You should try to implement a change in how you feel. Everything in your energy is being constrained by your thinking. You need to do something expansive to change how you feel. Then when you start to count your blessings, you will naturally be more positive about what is going on in your life that is causing these problems.

• Take action. Write down the things that are troubling you and write down what the next step in your plan is for resolving the problem or issue. Taking action begins with the first step. A bad plan toward your success is better than no plan at all. A bad plan can be modified or changed. The best plans are flexible and are already in existence.

• Many of us suffer seasonal affective disorder (SAD). When it rains, I turn on every light in the house. In the evening, I sit under a big fluorescent light. During times of heavy rain and snow, I play many of my video clips of beach scenes and beach parties. I keep space heaters around so that even when my house is cold, I can keep the room that I am in very warm. Soon I will have a condo in Florida or California that I can retreat to when the weather gets cold.

• Laughter is the greatest medicine in the world. There are times in your life when you cannot afford one negative thought. The best way to avoid the negative is to crowd your thinking with laughter. Watch comedies, play with your pet, and avoid the news at all times. Watch cartoons that make you laugh.

• Imagination is the greatest medicine in the world. Imagine that things are working out; imagine that things are getting better. Start to place yourself in a state of success even if that success is imagined. Now, while you are imagining, form the picture of what success looks like. Get started making your imagined world become your reality one step at a time.

What you resist persists.

—Carl Jung

When you give your personal power away to a circumstance that is bothering you, you lose. When you lose your ability to act, you open the floodgates to depression. When you lose your imagination, your own words will eat you to a slow and unthinkable death. When you lose hope, then all is lost. No one is truly defeated in any battle or conquest until he has lost hope.

Every situation is manageable.

—Gregory Jones

When hope is gone, we quit.

—Dave Ramsey

Where there is no hope, paralysis sets in and we freeze with apathy.

—Proverbs

Action Items

• Write down the thought that limits you most. Under that thought, write down its positive equivalent. Complete this act for every negative thought that you have had about your success. Learn to focus on the positive.

• A successful technique for creating hope and changing your thinking is to examine your issues and problems and find their positive equivalents. Since you become what you think, you must dwell on the positive equivalent, not the potentially negative, damaging thought.

Examples of this are:

Original limiting