Edition #96 – 11/21/2006
If you’ve been reading my newsletter lately, you’ll know I’ve been writing about VISION.
First of all, I want to say “thank you” to all who participated by posting their visions on my blog (you can read them here). I also want you to know that I took the time to read each and every vision that was posted. Some of them were inspiring, and a few of them even came close to bringing me to tears.
Congratulations to Karren Javier who was randomly chosen as the winner of the contest (Karren, just go to the helpdesk and let me know your mailing address and I’ll get the CD’s out to you).
As I had mentioned at the beginning of the contest, there are no “wrong answers”, because your vision is a personal thing.
If your vision is to drop out of life, and live out the rest of your days watching TV while sustaining yourself on Social Security checks, that’s fine. It’s not how I would choose to spend my time on earth, but that’s okay. It’s your vision.
If your vision is to generate just enough income from your online business to pay your bills and quit your day job, that’s fine too. I have a much bigger vision for my business, but again that’s okay. This is your vision.
HOWEVER, I want to take a moment to give you a little more direction, because I get the feeling that some of you are not allowing yourselves to see a big enough vision.
I’m not saying that everyone must be destined to do “big” things. For example, just changing one person’s life for the better is a vision worth aspiring to.
I think the problem is that many people’s visions are being suppressed by their present circumstances.
Here’s how I see it. If you set your target too low, you may hit it, but there is almost no chance that you will exceed it. If you set your target too high, you may fail, but you will be further along than the “low” target. Therefore it’s better to set your vision higher.
One of the biggest things I see holding people back is a “victim mentality”. It’s easy for us to think that just because we’re starting from dire circumstances, we should set our standards lower.
Okay look. Some people really were born with a silver spoon in their mouth. But MANY successful people were not.
The history books are full of people who started in impossibly difficult situations and became successful in spite of (and because of) their adversities.
Regardless of how sick, how poor, how hopeless your situation may seem… if your brain is still functioning and you have the power to think, then YOU ARE able to have vision.
Consider Viktor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist who was put into a Nazi death camp during Word War II. His family was killed, he was stripped of his dignity, and made to live and work like a starved animal.
Yet he discovered that he still held the power to exercise mental discipline, and in the midst of torture, he clung to a vision for lecturing to his students in the classroom after his release.
If he could have vision in the midst of his situation, so can you.
In The Power of Positive Thinking, published in 1952, Norman Vincent Peale wrote…
“Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek to develop this picture. Never think of yourself as failing; never doubt the reality of the mental image. That is most dangerous, for the mind always tries to complete what it pictures. So always picture “success” no matter how badly things seem to be going at the moment.”
So as you formulate your vision, I want you to go beyond your present situation. Cast off any victim mentality that may be trying to keep you down.
Second, I think many of us have taken on a “just get by” mentality.
We may think things like…
“If I could just get an extra $_____ per month, it would solve my problems.”
Or we think…
“If I just had a million dollars I could retire and have just enough to never work another day in my life.”
I encourage you to “see beyond yourself”. Consider your values and your top priorities in life. Look at the world around you…
What would it take for you to be able to make the kind of impact you want to make?
What kind of legacy do you want to leave?
Again there are no inherently wrong visions, but I believe that your big vision…the one for your life…should be about more than just personal wealth.
The size of your vision will dictate the size of the result.
In order to set your vision higher, you need to see YOURSELF as a person of worth. You need to know that YOU are a valuable resource, and you hold the potential for great things.
If you are young (like me), this should be obvious. Your life is an unwritten book. You can make it what you want it to be.
If you are old, this still applies. You are a fountain of wisdom and experience. You hold great value, and many of the world’s greatest accomplishments have occurred in the latter years of people’s lives.
In his book, See You At The Top, Zig Ziglar writes…
“For a long time I thought the most tragic thing that could happen to man during his lifetime would be to discover an oil well or a gold mine on his property as he lay on his death bed. Now I know that it is infinitely worse to never discover the vastly greater worth that lies within the individual.”
So as you formulate your vision, I want you to know that you are valuable, and you hold the power to do great things.
Don’t sell yourself short.
Soon I’ll write about what to do with your vision after you’ve created it in your mind.
As always, I encourage you to post your comments here in my blog.
Have a great day!
I am really enjoying reading your newsletter. You display such clear thinking and you make a strong case for what you wish your readers to get. I acknoledge you for your stand for everyone’s greatness. Thank you for your generosity.
Dr. Claude Windenberger
http://profile.myspace.com/72328693
Happy Thanskgiving Happy Holidays.
Thank you , Eric.
You and I both know that I can ill afford this, but I did put in for it.
Who knows, maybe I can be a rich old. old lady. If I turn out that way, I can always blame you.
If and when you get a new house, how about a picture?
That mile high city gets pretty cold in the winter, the cold there
is a dry cold and can freeze very quickly. The mountain passes (like loveland and Berthoud) on a moonlit night are really a fairy playground, Will send copy of payment as soon as I get it.
Happy Holidays and God Bless.
Hey Eric,
Great topic as well as some pretty awesome comments.
In the past I have had many visions, mostly involving money. Over the past five years I’ve bought and devoured everything from ‘Think and Grow Rich’ to ‘The Secret’. It’s only been the last 6 months or so that I’ve begun to see the whole picture.
I’ve taught myself everything there is to know about Internet Marketing and I could explain to anyone how to start making money tomorrow. It really is that easy, as you know. The thing is, I haven’t done much with it myself. I did create one product from start to finish in about 2 weeks and sold over 1500 in a year, so I know it can be done and I know how easy it is. But somewhere down the road, I lost the motivation, or so I thought.
I have rekindled my relationship with the Lord and now money is the least of my worries. I am without a job right now and am a single mother, but I tithe with what I have and know in my heart that I will never have any money issues, in fact we are all promised that in the bible just for believing and having faith.
Instead of saying ‘Vision’ I prefer to use the word ‘Purpose’. I believe that every one of us was put here at this time with a God given purpose. Whether it’s cleaning someone’s toilet, being a mother, or to make billions to give to reach people and tell them about Jesus, doesn’t matter as long as you believe in it, are happy doing it, and feel it in your conscience.
God hasn’t directly revealed my purpose to me yet because he wants me to deal with other issues in my life first, but I know it’s something big. I’ve know it most of my life, since I was a pre-teen. I chose then to ignore it and I’m sorry for that now. But when I think back to all the near-misses in my life – Whew, I’m glad He loves me!
Tomorrow my family is going to a neurosurgeon to see what they’re going to do about my dad who was just diagnosed with a large inoperable brain tumor, so without faith, what would we have? Money surely isn’t the answer, but getting people around the world to say a prayer for one another is.
When Jesus walked the earth, He only did for others, never Himself, so I guess my biggest vision right now is to stop being selfish with ‘what about me’ and take more time to help others.
Jesus Loves You!!!
Tracy
Hi Eric,
your report on vision was very interesting but made me wonder, why are people who set
themselves low targets even bothering to read your blogs, they may just as well go work for a boss
collect there pay each week and be happy with no ambition, no goals, no life.
It is really all in the words of the song, “its not where you start its where you finish” I am 63 years
young, and every day of my life I have learned something new that has kept on the road to the top
I am not there yet, But I know that before I finish I will be.
Life will always try to knock you back, ignore it keep the vision and you will reach the top.
i belive you and i want to make money from home and i want your help please
mazen yahya from jordan thanks again
You are something!Something else in a good way.
well im a little late on the vision thing,but after reading this email,I have a need to share it with you anyway.First of course I want to be finacial successful.My vision is to be able to help those that need it.I think everyday I would like to build a house or maybe a whole block of houses for the people who lost there homes in Katrina,I want to have a set up for animals when disaster hits and the need a temp home,I want to give not because it would make me special,because I like to.I guess I just want to leave this life knowing that not only did I care I was able to do something about it.
You mentioned Norman Vincent Peale, and quoted something which reminded me of Dale Carnegie’s book, loaned to me while I was in solitary confinement in reform school. The man who loaned me the book once explained to me that I had been pegged as a “manipulator”, possibly even a psychopath, and his solution was to Loan me a copy of HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE. Despite this rather absurdly obvious paradox, I did read the book, and in it was a piece which had been written by Elbert Hubbard, of which I was reminded when I read the quote from Peale’s book you posted. I specifically recalled “…like the coral insect takes from the tide…” what it needs to succeed, and so on.
Eric, I may well be ambitious to such degree as to render psychopathology mild by comparison. Yesterday, for example, as more or less a prelude, I posted Fact Theory as an article in Wikipedia. This is but the tip of an iceberg, fully capable of sinking the good ship called Big Bang theory, among other things. Crazy, huh? Like the game of GO, fact theory is primally simple, yet its implications reach quite deeply into science, religion, philosophy, law, didactic and semiosis in general.
My old rhyme, OMENS, conveys this quite articulately, I think, with the Chorus line:
“It’s ha, ah, ah,ah,ah,ard to waste a bad education!” (That’s right, yeah!) Repeat once.
The Yale Tomb, for example, proves this, among other things…
Hi Eric,
is so nice reading those wonderful epistle of yours.am encouraged.but could you explain to me in a lay man’s language how i can be making the kind of money you always talk about.they seem to me like a mirage.
i hope you just understand what i mean.
Brisbane
DEAR ERIC;
HAPPY THANKS GIVING.
MY PC.WAS OUT OF ORDER LAST WEEK.
I HOPE ALL THE HAPPINESS FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY
MY REGARDS TO YOUR WIFE AND PREETY ISABILA.
YOUR EGYPTION FRIEND.
Eric,
Your newsletters have been inspering.It has changed my perception in life. My idea of living an average life has been redirected to a far better way. Keep the good work you are doing towards affecting lives the world over.
Bye for now .
Mr David from Nigeria.