Posted By donmacnaughton ~ 23rd November 2011
3 Life Lessons We Can All Learn From a Boxing Legend
“Life doesn’t run away from nobody. Life runs at people.”
- Joe Frazier
Smokin’ Joe Frazier: even if you’re not a boxing fan, chances are you know that name. Known as ‘the people’s champ’, he’s the “average Joe” who became an Olympic and heavyweight boxing champion. So, how will you remember him? The man who knocked Muhammad Ali to the floor? Or the man who was knocked down six times by George Foreman?
At Frazier’s funeral service in Philadelphia, George Foreman paid tribute by saying, “When the bell rang, he would not back up from King Kong,” and Ali once said of their epic ‘Thrilla in Manila’ bout, “It was the closest thing to dying that I know of.” Clearly, in the boxing ring, Frazier was a physical force his opponents will never forget, but his equally formidable mental toughness, both in and out of the ring, is something we would all do well to remember him by.
Lessons from a Legend
1. To be a success, you must prepare to be a success.
“…You can map out a fight plan or a life plan, but when the action starts, it may not go the way you planned, and you’re down to your reflexes. That’s where your roadwork shows. If you cheated on that in the dark of the morning, well, you’re going to get found out now, under the bright lights.”
We all know that practice makes perfect but what Frazier is wisely pointing out is that it takes dedicated practice to reach your full potential in any area of life. Successful people are routinely successful, they practice being the best they can be every day and in every way. Becoming a success means developing successful reflexes!
2. You have to believe in yourself before others can believe in you.
“…I got a burlap sack, put a brick in the middle, and filled it with rags, corncobs, some Spanish moss, and sand. I hung that sack off the branch of an oak tree. I’d wrap my hands with a necktie of my daddy’s and punch at it. My mom gave me an hour a day. My brothers and sisters said, “Nah.” I said, “You’ll see.” (From an interview published in Esquire magazine, 2004)
Let’s face it, Frazier’s childhood circumstances and his fairly average stature made him an unlikely future heavyweight boxing champion. But, he believed in his abilities and he never stopped believing, even when facing King Kong in the ring! Champions become champions from within; Frazier believed in himself as a champion and he became that champion.
3. Without failure, there could be no success.
At Frazier’s funeral, the Rev. Alyn E. Weller said…
“How do you handle it when you get knocked down? One of the things Joe Frazier teaches us is how to live after the struggle. After ‘Down goes Frazier,’ he got back up. Next time that somebody tells you that you are down for the count, just remember, ‘I’m from Philly; that’s where Smokin’ Joe is from,’ we get back up!”
If it was impossible to fail, it would be impossible to succeed. Success is a journey, not a destination, and there are going to be roadblocks and bumps along the way. You don’t need a clear path to reach your true potential, you need a positive mental attitude and a willingness to look for ways over, around, and through the obstacles you meet. Down does not have to mean out!
Copyright © Don MacNaughton· All Rights Reserved· No reproduction without written permission.
Posted By donmacnaughton ~ 21st September 2011
Good Vibes Are Good For Business!
Everything that exists in the world is a form of energy. Everything in the universe that you can see, hear, smell, touch or taste is a form of energy and energy, in all its forms, vibrates. This means that everything in the world creates its own unique vibration, not just the things that physically exist but also the things that exist only in your mind.
Your thoughts and your emotions are simply forms of energy so everything you think and everything you feel creates its own vibration. Energy can be positive or negative, you can think positively or negatively, and you can generate ‘good’ or ‘bad’ vibrations so, in terms of your new business, do you have a good or a bad feeling about your potential to succeed?
When you think positively, you generate positive energy and that energy creates a positive environment around you. Everyone who comes into contact with you, whether it’s your business associates, your employees, or your clients, will pick up on the positive vibe surrounding you and they will be positively influenced by it – and that’s got to be good for business, right? When you get a ‘good feeling’ about something or someone, you’re picking up on the positive energy being generated.
The same applies when you get a ‘bad feeling’ about something or someone, you’re picking up on the negative energy being generated. With this in mind, the importance of thinking positively about yourself and your business becomes clear.
The way you think about yourself has the power to influence the way others think of you. You have to think positively about your potential to succeed if you want others to think the same way. When you are able to see yourself in your mind’s-eye as a success and believe in yourself as a success, the clients who walk through your door will also see that success.
Copyright © Don MacNaughton· All Rights Reserved· No reproduction without written permission.
Posted By donmacnaughton ~ 8th September 2011
Is it possible to be sure of anything in life?
If it’s your ambition to be successful in life, is it possible to be sure that you will achieve that success? Your definition of success is completely unique to you, we all have our own perception of what constitutes success in our own lives, but something we all share is the power to be masters of our own destiny. Each and every one of us already has that power within us and those who believe they will achieve the life they aspire to are those who recognise that power within themselves and believe in themselves.
We are all who we believe ourselves to be, so who do you believe you are? Our circumstances in life are simply a reflection of who we believe we are, so if you believe you are someone who can achieve whatever you want to achieve in life, you will. Of course, if you believe you are someone who is destined to fail, guess what? To become successful, you must first believe that you have the potential to succeed; you must have self-belief. Without that inner belief, the only thing you can be absolutely sure of in life is that you will not achieve your full potential.
Successful people have successful habits. They routinely think positively and act positively so success for them has become a routine habit. The way you think on a daily basis and the way you do things on a daily basis will ultimately decide your level of success in life. Every thought and every action you take on a daily basis must represent another step towards achieving your ambitions and unless you believe that those ambitions are achievable, success will not be yours.
For this reason, it’s crucial that you are absolutely sure of what it is you want to achieve. To be able to commit your every thought and every action to achieving your ambitions, you must be sure that what you think you want to achieve is really what you want to achieve and that what you’re doing is really what you want to do. The more you really want to do something, the more likely it is that you will.
We all have an inner wisdom, something we might describe as intuition or a ‘gut feeling’ about what we really want to become in life and what we really want to achieve but it’s wisdom that’s often overlooked or pushed aside by the pressures of modern life. The person we want to be and the things we want to do often play second fiddle to striving to become the person that someone else expects you to be or doing the things you feel you have to do or should do. If this sounds like you, consider this; successful people do what they love and love what they do. Do you love what you? When you find your passion, you find your inspiration, and when your thoughts and actions are inspired, you find your success.
Copyright © Don MacNaughton· All Rights Reserved· No reproduction without written permission.
Posted By donmacnaughton ~ 1st September 2011
Image via Wikipedia
“Success is never permanent and failure is never final”
Mike Ditka American football Player and Coach
Everything in the world as we know it is energy and energy is constantly in motion. When you think positively, you generate positive energy and when you think negatively, you generate negative energy but all energy moves in natural cycles and it’s a Universal Law that everything has a natural rhythm and that there is a time and a season for everything.
Knowing, understanding, and accepting that everything moves in cycles allows you to ‘go with the flow’ in life. It allows you to ride out the bad days, knowing that good days will come around again, and it allows you to remain positive during the negative phase of a cycle, knowing that what goes around, comes around.
When it feels like the world is against you and nothing is going your way, there’s a temptation to wallow in it and resign yourself to the fact that you’re not destined to achieve your dreams. However, thinking negatively generates negative energy and surrounding yourself with negativity can only lead to prolonging the length of your stay at the low end of a natural cycle – you effectively hold yourself back from going with the natural flow that would return you to the high end. Everything is energy and everything moves in natural cycles, including your thoughts and the effect those thoughts have on your circumstances.
The bottom line is that you can’t change what has already happened so when things have not been going your way, focusing on those happenings won’t change anything. But, what you can change is what happens next. Negative thinking can only ever hold you back but by changing your thinking and adopting a positive mental attitude, you can generate enough positive energy to move forwards from where you are and speed up your return to the high end of the cycle. Remember, what you think about, you bring about so the key to achieving your dreams is to focus on exactly that; your focus must be on what can still be achieved, not what has already happened and can’t be changed. Everything has an opposite and everything moves in cycles so where there are lows there will also be highs.
It takes positive energy to generate positive outcomes and accepting that lows can and will return to highs is a powerful way to maintain a positive mental attitude and to continue generating that positive energy. The ups and downs of life are simply part of a continuous natural cycle and just as the tide will continue to turn and the seasons will continue to change, you have the power to change your energy and to change your lot in life. If what goes up must come down, then what goes down must also go up!
Copyright © Don MacNaughton· All Rights Reserved· No reproduction without written permission.
Posted By donmacnaughton ~ 23rd August 2011
“Things do not change, we change”
- Henry David Thoreau
If you don’t like your lot in life, you have the power to change it. Everything around us in the world as we know it is energy, including our thoughts, and it’s a scientific fact that energy is constantly in motion. This means that everything, thoughts included, is in motion and according to the Universal Law of Energy, all energy in motion will eventually appear in a physical form, or, put another way, what you think about, you bring about.
What this means is that you have the power to change your circumstances by changing the way you think. Look at it this way, if the way you think about things and the way you do things now is not bringing you the results you want in life, continuing to think and do things in the same way will continue to bring you more of the same! If you want a different outcome in life, you have to be prepared to think and do things differently – and that means embracing change.
Let’s face it, more often than not in life we don’t like change! Clearly, change can be a good thing but recognising that you need to make changes in your life doesn’t necessarily make it any easier to actually make those changes: knowing doesn’t instantly lead to doing. Most of us fear change, or at best procrastinate over making changes, because changing how we do things means moving away from everything safe and familiar in life. Where you are now is your comfort zone and stepping out of there means leaving behind a predictable world and stepping out into a world of unknowns. But, here’s the thing, if you don’t like your current, predictable world, why do you fear the unknown one? The answer is that by default, you automatically fear the worst.
Without the ability to embrace change by thinking positively, you automatically think in negative terms of “what if?” Instead of looking ahead at the potential positives of making changes, you think only of potential problems, “What if it all goes wrong; what if I can’t do it?” When you think negatively, you fear taking action so you stay where you are – in your comfort zone. There can be times when your comfort zone is a positive place, a place where you feel you can take time-out to pause and reflect on your achievements so far before taking the next step but if it becomes a place where you stop or a place where you hide, it’s no longer a positive place.
Changing your circumstances means making changes so begin by changing your focus. Change your negative ‘what ifs?’ into positive ‘what ifs?’ When you change your focus away from what you don’t want in life and begin to think only about what you do want, you change your energy. When you learn to focus on what making positive changes will bring into your life, there’s no longer an ‘unknown’ to fear. When you know what good things lie ahead, you begin to bring about what you think about.
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“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself”
- Andy Warhol
Copyright © Don MacNaughton· All Rights Reserved· No reproduction without written permission.
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