Principle five simply states:

You are inherently endowed with an ability to perform in an exceptional manner when you combine passion with your talents, abilities, and learning experiences.

One of the most important jobs in managing people is to determine what they are good at. So many people take jobs for which they are unsuited or have no interest. Then they wonder why they have no passion for their work or why it is so hard to go to work everyday. In truth, it is your responsibility to find your passion, not your boss. Remember, this series is about success and your role in it. Which is 100%, whether you accept it or not.

Soon someone at less than 100% begins complaining to others about their work situation, making mistakes, and finding everything about their work a problem or a burden; even showing up! If my message about responsiblity and accountability got through, then resolution begins by looking inside yourself rather than finding fault with the system you are in at present. Like my Mother used to say, “Birds of feather flock together.” Meaning you are presently where you deserve to be with people who reflect your present state of mind!

Now I know this is hard to believe. I used to deny this to my mother until I took a hard look at the people I “hung out” with, what they talked about, and how accomplished they were. Not very impressive to say the least. Just being with them most of the time, listening to their insessant gossip, and blaming others for their demise, woke me up quicker than any seminar I could have attended. (Proving again, You can´t fool your mama!)

If I am speaking about you or someone you know then help is on the way. So where do you begin to get it together.

1. Write down all the things you really enjoy doing, computers, being with people, outdoors, working with your hands, creating new stuff, teaching, helping, etc. Write ten things from your heart, not your head.

2. Then write down all the skills you need or should know in order to maintain your “personal stock.” Your personal stock is your value for employment based on what you know and can perform in an exceptional manner. Then get busy learning these regardless of your present situation, so you won´t have to fake your resume when you decide to move to another job!

3. Write ten skills, abilities, and learning experiences you have acquired or would be naturally-driven to learn. What are you good at, speaking, working with others, helping, creativity, software, writing, technical skills, etc. Don´t worry about writing a job description at this point.

4. Match what you enjoy with your skills, abilities, and experiences (1 and 3 above) and write a unique job description; whether that job presently exists or not.

5. Research where this job could be useful to an employer or start a new business. Use the internet to search or even market yourself! Be creative about promoting the truth about your abilities and skills.

6. Then go for it! Begin to market yourself while creating an honest job description. If you lie about what you can do, it will follow you and haunt you in your career; not to mention the guilt it might foster in you.

The bottom-line is you will never really be happy until you live your passion!

If you create your own reality, whether consciously or unconsciously, then you are not only responsible and accountable for every event that happens in your life, but also for creating the probability of that event, in advance! This statement is obviously the graduate course in self-mastery. Let’s examine the implications of such a statement as a way to live your life. For it can be overwhelmingly powerful and insightful.

Several years ago, I facilitated an outdoors “Ropes Course.” Individuals, in teams and alone, would attempt physically-demanding events on the ground and at great heights. One of the great-heights event involved climbing a shaved tree that was about 50 or 60 feet high which had a shaky platform on top. The objective was to climb to the top of the tree, somehow stand on the platform, and jump for a swinging trapeze significantly out of reach. Most of the team laughed when the instructions were first given. With a sober face I asked, “Are there any questions?” Then I simply said, “Okay, who needs to go first?”

They huddled for five minutes and made a decision. Among the team of five men and one woman, it was decided the woman would go first. She was obviously terrified from the start. She asked about the small size of the platform, which she didn’t know was shaky at that point. I told her not to worry about the platform until she reached the top; if she reached the top! Then I took her aside and said, “I know you can do this. I saw how athletic you were on the other events.”

She replied, “I’m afraid of heights.” “Perfect,” I said. “This is your chance to lose what is underneath that fear.” “What do you mean?” she asked. I instructed her to ask herself a question everytime she felt she was about to fall or wanted to give up on the event and she would get her answer.

By the way, this is obviously a harnessed event!

She made it to the top and began crying. I told her crying was great. That she was experiencing “tears of joy.” She mounted the shaky platform and informed me she was ready to come down. I asked her to think about this decision she was about to make. I asked, “Is this about where you stop in life, when winning the gold is within your each? You certainly have good reason to stop now, even though you know you can catch the trapeze.” One of her team members blurted out, “Why don’t you let her down, you can see she’s done her best!” I ignored him, of course, since he was really projecting his own fear he would have to face if he got that far.

After three minutes of soul-searching, she asked me to help her get into a rhyhtm to jump for the trapeze. I told to think of something she had always wanted in her life, but could never reach. (Something always happened that wasn’t her fault; which meant she wasn’t responsible; but she was always there!) Then picture the success of that thing sitting on the trapeze swinging back and forth in front of you. The question at this point was not could she catch the trapeze, but if she chose to do so; and what would be the implications if she succeeded! Literally, her life’s direction was swinging there before her captured in a single jump.

Obviously, this event had transcended a physically-challenging exercise. (mind-body stuff) So, then I told her, “It’s time to make a decision, we have other people for this event, take responsibility for choosing to fail or succeed! Focus on your heart talking to you. The next time the trapeze comes within your reach, either follow your heart or the self-limiting conversations of your mind.”

Before I could finish my statement, she jumped for the trapeze going beyond its reach, so charged was her energy and intention. So, she hung there holding on with one hand, crying and laughing simultaneouly. Then she clutched the bar with her other hand. She seemed to be swinging in slow motion. I told her to let go, that she was successful. She was in another world. She didn’t even hear me. Nor would she ever hear those who supported her limitations in the future. Her reality about her capability was transformed forever!

The realization she shared that night at our debrief was that in that moment of indecision, she recounted a sequence of events in her life where she had stopped short in her academic performance, participation in sports, choice of a boyfriend she really wanted at the time, and her present career in life. She could clearly see now that she made those decisions without conscious awareness, but nevertheless, she made them and she was responsible and accountable for the limitations she placed upon herself.

Now she could consciously decide to live her life with full intention, with the freedom to decide, and the realization that she had the power to create her own reality.

Responsibility and accountability are the most fundamental concepts to mastering the human experience; no matter what your race, culture, circumstances, history, or whatever you might have been using to sell yourself short! This is the most important principle for success no matter how you uniquely define it.

The fundamental challenge we face as human beings is learning to compatibly resolve differences; and even more, learning a methodology for turning differences into strengths.

More specifically, we fear differences that appear to threaten our present way of thinking and believing and the corresponding change (or more precisely the transformation) implied by the challenge.

The most controversial example at present is the book and movie “The Da Vinci Code.” One of the major controversial points is the supposition that Jesus married Mary Magdeleine and fathered a child that carries his consciousness through women from generation to generation; to the present.

This supposition is, of course, in opposition to historical Christian doctrine. It appears to me that it is immaterial whether Jesus was, indeed, married or not. His impact on the last 2000 years of history is immense and can not be diminished, invalidated, or erased – both good and bad in terms of how his doctrines were implemented by various churches.

What is more important is the popularity of the book and movie. It is immense. This popularity tells more about the thirst of people, planet-wide, for a new paradigm of religious/spiritual experience. I would suggest that religion and spirituality are distinctly different; religion is form and spirituality is the “driving essence” that gives rise to form. As such, there are, in theory, an infinite number of religious forms – none superior to others from this perspective.

The message derived from the book’s popularity is that many of us are seeking a spiritual experience. Spiritual experiences are transforming, for they go beyond the ego self. The change is from a survival-based mind set to one that is creative-adaptive. A creative-adaptive mind-set welcomes and anticipates the change necessary for human adaptation and compatibility. We sometimes forget that nothing lasts forever and progressive change is the key to survival and adaptation of any organism.

So, perhaps redefining our religious beliefs and practices could be more effective in facilitating spiritual transformation; thus, resulting in a more humanly compatible planet of people.

If we are personally free to consciously create whatever we truly desire and drive that desire with a strong intention, then we are, in essence, creating our own reality.

The second principle of success brings us face-to-face with our self-limiting beliefs (or fears) we discovered in the discussion on intentionality.

Today begins the first in a series of blogs from a book we have in our bookstore. The book title is “Destined to Succeed.” This book provides a guideline for achieving success in your life; however, you might uniquely define success, e.g., having a certain income, a home, a happy family, achieving a goal, or simply being at peace with yourself and your life.

The Principle of Intentionality states that what occurs in your life is what you intend to happen. Quite simply, it means whatever is the present state of your life is what you are intending to have. This is a very difficult principle to accept. But it forces us to view the state of our lives from the standpoint of what is rather than what we say we want.

I remember early in my career I kept telling others that I wanted to write and publish a book. When I began to notice that no one really believed me, I had this realization that “seeing is believing.” I simply had nothing to show for my statements about wiring. Which meant, I would have to get serious and begin to “put pen to paper,” if I really meant to write.

It was only then I learned that had fears about writing. “Could I write so others could understand and enjoy my work?” “Did I have the discipline to stick with it to completion?” “What if no one was interested in my ideas?” I remember the saying, “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubts.” And on and on the list went as I began to explore my own self-limiting programming.

It was then I discovered why I had not written anything up to that time. I would have to face my hidden fears about myself. My real intention was not to write. My real intention was to protect myself from learning whether any or all of my beliefs above (fears) would come true! I realized then that I had the opportunity to change my intention. But it would involve risking. But it also involved learning. I chose to risk and learn.

So, if there is something you really want in your life and you have not begun to accomplish it, you might consider the following steps to change your intention and take action!

1) Write what it is you want to have as simple statement. (so someone else could understand it)

2) As you visualize yourself taking action to acomplish it, quickly begin to write the fears and the corresponding beliefs that are unique to you.

3) Examine the consequences if the fears were true. (worse case senario) They rarely are true.

4) Then begin behaving consistent with your goal. Even better, begin behaving as though the you have already achieved your goal!

When your fears surface, you will know you are engaging the process of overcoming them. Stick with the process. Your fears will gradually subside. Tust me! (smile)

Next: Principle Two

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I was elated and saddened Dr. Guillory to hear about your experience but glad that you are safe. I too was trapped in New Orleans,not in my home but the Superdome for 6 days. It was hell on earth. I experienced people at their best and worst. That’s another story and we all have them. I am one of your former students from Dillard. So glad you are safe. I pray for your strength to ” move on”. I hope that your latter days will be greater than your former days. I think of you and Dr. Dan Thompson often. I enjoyed your classes. Your gift of teaching is a blessing that I was priviledged to experience. So I too move on here in Atlanta with my daughter, and I take the memories of my life there with me. All of them good and bad I cherish each day. God bless you and may he keep you in his care. –Posted by Mattie Stone-Williams to Where to Now? at 5/03/2006 06:39:29 AM

I, for one, am impressed and supportive of the efforts of Hispanic, Latino, and Chicano individuals to become a naturalized part of the United States. I believe we are a richer, more productive, and creative country in doing so. Biological and economic systems that focus on sameness have been shown historically to be highly subject to their own extinction. Diversity is not only an inescapable reality, but the key that has fueled the success of the U.S. over its entire existence. And here, I go beyond racial and ethnic diversity to include culture, religion, language, systems, styles, creativity & innovation, backgrounds, etc. Diversity is an inherent part of human existence.

These statements are not meant to ignore the logistics of large numbers of immigrants entering the U.S. because of the opportunities available to everyone. I certainly have no simplistic answers. But one economic factor that always prevails is when there are no jobs available for those here or entering the U.S., there will be no motivation for entering or remaining in a country that is not native to one’s self. I know this is not a solution, but a factor in the overall equation.

As I have stated so often in my blogs, nothing substative will emerge in terms of a solution until we shift from survival-based thinking to creative-adaptive thinking. I often ask myself, “If I lived in an economically-limiting situation and was next door to a land of plenty, what woud I do?” As Animal Kingdom professes, resolution begins with seeing through the eyes of others; particularly, those who are less fortunate. Then following with an in-depth understanding of what someone less fortunate really experiences and wants. Not what I hear on the news or what I’m told, but what I can learn for myself from those who are honestly dealing with survival. This opportunity is available to each of us right where we are now! These are two ideas of a place to start with a situation that has centuries of history; from a personal perspective!

However, with respect to the present situation we are forced to resolve or “bandaid,” I think Frederick Douglass has said it best for those wanting a change and acceptance: