The Obstacles That Prevent Success

The road to success has always been scattered with obstacles. The unsuccessful did not feel like they could overcome those obstacles and they did not. What would life be like if every time there was road construction and traffic came to a stop people got out of their cars and sat on the side of the road, just giving up. They may not be able to see the end of the traffic and from their perspective they cannot see where they will ever be able to move forward. While this may seem like a ludicrous example, it is a point illustrated by Og Mandino called the “Living Death”. “Living Death” is the concept that most people are already dead or slowly dying. They have just given up, much like those in our example who have abandoned their cars due to traffic. Those individuals have lost their ambition, their dreams, and their desire to excel in life. These individuals have built a prison for themselves to keep them from venturing out into the world. If they risk venturing out they may get hurt or rejected again. They find themselves with a lack of self-esteem, a fear of failure and a lack of self-confidence. These negatives reinforce the prison walls. This prison is a mental penitentiary but it can be destroyed if the desire is strong enough. In order to destroy the prison one must learn and implement the seeds of success and become success oriented. To break down those prison walls, people must understand that each opportunity will present two possible outcomes, acceptance or rejection. Regardless of the outcome, each opportunity will give us knowledge. For example if a salesperson gets a sale, they have learned something, and made money. If they didn’t get the sale they hopefully still learned something that they can take with them to their next opportunity. They then can take the information learned and adjust their sales presentation, always growing and learning. As I have grown in business I have taken each success as well as the failures and tried to better myself from each experience. I have learned that each experience has helped shape me into who I am today. My personal brand, who and what I am, would not be what it is now if I had not taken each and every opportunity as just that, an opportunity. I challenge you to do the same. For this and other blogs by Brad Hess please visit Mymark blogs