I find it fascinating that when I work with people and start the process of helping them to take over their lives, define goals, develop the character that they want, zero in on the values that they want to live by, and define themselves within the concepts of the Four Dynamics, one of the biggest hurdles that I usually face after a few sessions is the fear of success. You got it - the fear of success.

“What happens if I become successful?”

“Are my inadequacies going to be revealed in front of the whole world? As long as I stay down, below all radar, not being a success but muddling along in life, I don’t have to worry about how "they" are going to find me out, that I don’t deserve the success that I have. I am not that person but the person who is now really afraid of failure, because I have some success! They are going to find out that I am unworthy and that I am an imposter. I am really empty inside and what is happening to me is just good luck.”

“When something good happens to me, I know I will have to pay for it in some way.” “If things go too well, I know someone is going to spoil it for me.” “When I feel too good, I know something bad is going to happen.” “It just always happens to me, you know... the bad luck just as things start to go right.”

What do I mean by the fear of success? The feeling that you don’t deserve success, coupled with the fact that you now have to keep success going.

By practicing success coaching the way we have laid it out, you can overcome these feelings of fear of success and create some success for yourself that you can be proud of and say, “Yep, I did that, and no matter what happens after that, I was successful.”

If you don’t try to be successful because of fear that you will eventually fail, you won’t try to do anything, and just keep a low profile. So go ahead and break out today!

“People don’t really change.”

Wow. Not a statement I would expect from Donald Trump, who has time and again been a master or reinvention, and one who has written several best-sellers exhorting readers on to greatness. But that was exactly what he said during last week’s season premiere episode of The Apprentice.

Now, we must put into perspective that Trump is a billionaire who started out with a serious silver spoon, a lot of venture capital from the family business, and a drive and ego that - as he would state - has not really changed. He knew who he wanted to be, and is one of the most driven people on the planet.

But what about that idea that people don’t change? Heck, here at Life Motivations, we are building an entire business around helping people change their lives.

So what happens to us if we can’t change? That’s fine for Donald Trump, who started out rich and successfully stayed there. But the annals of success are filled with stories of people who completely changed their circumstances and created entirely new lives. In other words, they changed.

So who does one look to for thoughts on change? Do we think Oprah Winfrey, an abused child who grew up with nothing, would believe that someone couldn’t change their life? Do we tell all the people displaced from New Orleans that, “There really is no hope, so you might as well just stick with poverty,” rather than use the change in circumstances nature has foisted upon them to start anew and reach for the stars this time.

Right now we’re in the midst of development of a new product designed to help people take control of the change in their lives. Some of the course design concept comes from the idea that it takes 21 days to break a habit or ingrain a new skill (Step wrote about this in detail a few months back in an article on The Phantom Effect). We are committed to helping people change.

So is Trump right? Or are we?

If people can’t change, why don’t we just close down all the prison rehabilitation programs, drug addiction centers, therapists, churches, and everything else that over the decades and centuries have shown that change is not only possible but an admirable quality to which one should aspire? If we closed down everything the government is paying for that supposedly helps people change, we could probably balance the budget and eliminate the deficit tomorrow.

I’ll admit to having failed at trying to change my messy desk habit. But that’s because it has never become enough of a priority to me to truly commit to a change in my piling/filing system.

On the other hand, when any of us truly commit to changing something, it gets changed. New skills get developed. More knowledge is obtained. New opportunities are grasped, because we are open to changes in course, and we make choices that move us in the direction we want and need to head.

I choose to disagree with Trump in this circumstance. That is because I am committed to change, to development, to growth, to learning, and to doing what is necessary to move forward.

Sorry, I don’t buy it. There is change we can control, and change we can’t. But the more change we consciously control, the more we will achieve in life.

I think I’ll clean my desk now.

Victor Currie is Chief Operating Officer of Life Motivations.

Before we get into the developing of a Master Mind, what you should be doing now is working on your success characteristics for yourself and the relationships around you. Let’s take positive self-image as a start. How do you create a more positive self-image for yourself, and how will this affect your relationships with those around you?

PS: Check out the recent Weekly Challenges as an introduction or to find a new success technique.

“What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”

One of my favorite approaches to the customer is the one that is perfected by all of the most talented salespeople. You know, the one where you greet the customer with a cup of coffee in your hand, maybe some loose change rattling in your pocket. And of course there is my favorite, and donít say it doesnít happen because I saw it this weekend, the cigarette in mouth opener. Yes, I am kidding, but there is no second chance at a first impression. More on that next week!

PS: See the recent Sales Tips of the Week from Step Jones’

Who was the father of success philosophy?

1. Jack Welsh
2. Napoleon Hill
3. Dale Carnegie
4. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale

Email us the correct answer and you will get a FREE Mp3 download of Step Jones’ CD, You Are a Winner

The answer to last week’s trivia question is #3, Abraham and Mary Lincoln. (It is believed that Abraham suffered from bouts of depression and more than likely that Mary Lincoln suffered from schizophrenia.)

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