I am a very lucky man. Why, you may ask, since I have the same heartbreaks, the same problems, and the same ups and downs as everyone else. People I love die, move away, and leave me.

I have worked hard to educate myself and build my own good fortune, and I didn’t always feel very fortunate at certain times in my life. As a matter of fact I have had some really low times in life, probably just like you. And yet I kept moving forward, kept looking to build my dreams, and I had the audacity to dream big dreams.

People kept telling me to be happy with what I had, which was nothing, and that didn’t excite me at all.

So I moved forward in the adventure of life even though many people told me not to, to stay where I was, that it was going to get better. I didn’t think so. Are you facing this same dilemma, with your aspirations fading from sight because people around you are helping you kill your dreams? Are you afraid to go forward and try to live your dreams, your adventures, because you might fail?

And fail you might. There is someone in the self-help business named Tony that says there is no failure. There is. I have had it, and I’ll bet you have too. How we react to that failure and move forward in life makes all of the difference. If you are afraid to fail you probably won’t live some of the adventures that you want in life, and when you get ready to die you might have regrets that you didn’t fail.

Reading is something we all should do but don’t. We were speaking to the Executive Vice-President of the Orlando Magic who works with a lot a young men, and he said that the average person once they graduate from college never reads another book. I am not sure about that, but after many years of questioning and researching I can definitely say that the average person reads less than two books a year. This is a national crime, and if you are not reading you should get busy and start. If you have children and they see you read, they will read, and reading does separate people from the success and failure bins of life.

It doesn’t even matter what you read as long as you do. It is food for your brain and is a wonderful way to get started to more success.

You don’t have to have a college degree to be educated, but if you read you will become an expert in a field after only reading five or so books! Amazing, isn’t it?! You could be the expert by only reading five books. (Make sure they are the right five books.)

How much more could we be if we made reading something that we should do? How much more opportunity would our children have if they read a little bit every day instead of playing video games or other distractions that they are doing now instead of reading.

If a child is taught to read he or she has the whole world open up to them. Otherwise it becomes a closed universe to the next generation, and in some cases to our own generation.

When I went to corporate meetings I always took a book, and people would say, “Step always is reading”. There was down time that I could use to figure something out, learn something new. Most high achievers are great readers. How are you doing?

We have a challenge: self-discipline. I call it personal strength. Ever lie to yourself? I have lied to myself. I think I am going to do something and then I don’t do it. When I tell myself that I am going to do something and then don’t do it, I lose personal strength, and so do you. We have all the good intentions in the world, and then we don’t have the self-discipline to do something that we told ourselves we would- save money, eat less, stop smoking, stop drinking, don’t do drugs, be nice to the family, be nice to ourselves. I may be out there just a little bit, but do you tell yourself you are going to do something and then through lack of self-discipline you don’t do it? You are robbing yourself of personal strength. It is better if you stop promising yourself things that you don’t do. Try a little self-discipline, or quit telling yourself that you are going to do something that you don’t do. Begin the process of having great personal strength, and start telling yourself the truth.

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

“Real leaders are ordinary people with extraordinary determination.”

Let’s take one of the most important ingredients of the sale: you. If for some reason the person that you would like to buy something doesn’t think you have the right integrity and judgment, they won’t buy anything from you. You make judgments like this yourself- not only the salesperson, but also the company has a reputation. I know that my wife won’t shop in some stores because she thinks they are too expensive, or they don’t have the right customer service, or for a number of other reasons. Every time you buy something or your client buys something from you, you have passed the integrity and judgment test from their perspective. So if you are winging it with answers, the customer will know and they won’t buy from you. It is better to say, “Let me find out so I don’t give you any wrong information.” Or the best thing is to actually know what you are doing. Study, and make sure you know everything about the product and the service that you give, so that you can have the kind of answers that the customer wants, needs and deserves. Make sure when they think of you and your company, they think, “this is a place where I want to do business!”

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

This English hospital worker became a movie star and worked on the film “Star Wars”. He became an American Citizen at age 60.

1. David Prowse
2. Ahmed Best
3. Peter Mayhew
4. Frank Oz
5. Jabba the Hutt

Answer the question correctly and get a free MP3 download of Step Jones’s CD Help Yourself Be Better  from his upcoming new audio product Jump Start

The answer to last week’s trivia question is #2, Elvis Presley.