By Captain Bob Webb

The person who achieved their goal had a VISION that MOTIVATED them.

A vision that motivates is the standard constant for success across all social classes and/or lifestyles. It does not matter how many years a person spent in classrooms, a motivating vision is the common denominator for achievement. President Abraham Lincoln never went to school; he became President because he had a vision that motivated him. In addition, his vision was so powerful that it motivated everyone around him and that energy motivated the country.

This booklet will give you the tools to put purpose and meaning in your life by helping you develop a vision, thereby motivating you to a more exciting lifestyle. This can be done if you recognize barriers and work at removing them. A vision that motivates is the secret. Achieving a desired lifestyle is the result.

We become what we think about all day.

To change our lifestyle we must change our thinking habits.

We change our thinking habits by focusing on desired goals.

Money is not a goal -- it is a reward ONLY for personal

achievement.

Dreams are more valuable than money, because dreams find

opportunity.

Money FIRST does not fulfill dreams it can kill them.

Seek your dream money will follow.

Many people have no further ambition other than to learn a professional skill that supports a lifestyle that meets basic needs. For them, life is standing still. This attitude is the result of pressure, by society, to accept the status quo. Today, students are given behavior control drugs, forcing them to accept the status quo. This is the end of visionaries in our society.

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Written and Published by

Captain Bob Webb 220 Ibis Lane

Goose Creek, SC 29445 © Copyrighted 2011, 2017 by Robert L. Webb

This publication contains excerpts from the website

Motivation Tool Chest motivation-tools.com

October 2017 Edition

The information at this booklet is based on my experience and research that agrees with my experience. There is a lot of garbage and wishful thinking floating around out there. Using my experience as a guide, I can sort out and focus on concepts that I found to work.

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Topics

How Goals Find a Desired Lifestyle 6 Most people have a dream of the lifestyle they want to live and are searching for ways to achieve it. Some people achieve it and others never come close. Why?

Changing Your Lifestyle 9 People who have a vision control their destiny and lifestyle. For people without a vision, their destiny and lifestyle is controlled by others.

Develop a Dream 12 Is day dreaming a form of education? Does daydreaming bring opportunity? If dreams are the beginning of opportunity, don’t they have value?

Setting Goals 17 Success on achieving goals is dependent on three elements.

A Goal Is a Journey of Decisions 19 A goal is a powerful desire that sends us on a journey using decisions to transport us to an unknown destination. Very often, this destination is vague because we encounter opportunities/experiences that change our thinking which changes our direction.

How I Made My Dreams Come True 21 My Story

Three Elements of Motivation 24 Motivation starts with the desire to be free, to be free from dependency on others, freedom to live the lifestyle we dream of, freedom to explore our ideas.

7 Rules of Motivation 28 What is takes to hang in there.

Comfort Zones 29 Comfort zones are directly related to our dreams or goals which is associated with self-fulfilling prophecy. In order to grow and change, we must be discontent with our current comfort zone.

Motivational Speakers 31 An occasional motivation seminar can make us feel good and can produce positive results. On the other hand, there is a dark side.

Perseverance 34 The common argument for failure is "I lost interest or I didn’t have enough money." While true, neither one is valid. Motivation depends on many factors with the primary factor being the power of your dreams.

Overcoming Failure 36 Failure is a learning tool. Thomas Edison failed a thousand times before he invented the light bulb. Failure is trying to do things others have not considered. It is a temporary by-product of creativity. It is challenging the learning process.

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Self-Education 39 It is possible for man to educate himself without help or support from others. In fact, when we learn the art of self-education we will find, if not create, opportunity to find success beyond our wildest dreams.

How Universal Intelligence Creates Opportunity Beyond Our Wildest Dreams 42 We connect to universal intelligence when searching for answers not found in recorded knowledge. It is similar to searching the internet.

Motivation Charts

The Voyage to Our Desired Lifestyle 2 Money, Power, Influence 11 Dreams 12 Learning to Finish What We Start 18 Dependency Zone to Success Zone 20 3 Elements of Motivation 24 Influence and Lifestyles 25 People Who have a Vision 27 Earning Power 30 Attach a Dream to Your Hero 33 Changing Our Environment 38 Your Destiny 39 Develop, Then Discover Your Natural Talent 41 How Universal Intelligence Supports Goals 43

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How Goals Find a Desired Lifestyle

Most people have a dream of the lifestyle they want to live and are searching for ways to achieve it. Some people achieve it and others never come close. Why?

When I was a teenager I read books on sailing around the world in small sailboats, crossing the Pacific Ocean on a raft, and exploring the jungles of Latin America. During this time I developed a dream of the lifestyle I wanted to live and what I wanted to achieve. Two ideas motivated me; travel down the Amazon River and cross the Pacific Ocean in a dugout canoe. By the age of 35 I achieved both of these goals. Events like this don’t just happen; they are the result of dreaming, then taking action. Without a goal that motivates nothing will happen.

There are seven steps between dreaming and achieving a desired lifestyle.

1. Finding a goal that motivates. – Experiences plus knowledge helps us find a goal that sticks, not a passing fad.

2. Attach a dream to our hero. – We are influenced by the achievements of others such as sport fans. Go beyond cheering them and set a goal of doing something related to their achievement.

3. Developing persistence. – Research, dreaming, fantasizing, and socializing with people with similar interest are exercises that increase persistence and motivation. These powerful activities cost nothing.

4. Taking action. – Nothing is going to happen until we take action. This requires time, money, resources, and risk. This includes acquiring additional skills.

5. Unexpected help. – When pursuing a goal that motivates, intuitive forces become active that has us at the right place at the right time for opportunity or it brings opportunity to us. This is in the form of personal achievement, not greed such as money. Money is a reward of personal achievement.

6. Making a decision. – When doors of opportunity open, this is decision time to accept or reject it. Very often this requires risk.

7. Bonus benefits to a goal. – They inspire others and want to be associated with them. That puts them on the short list for opportunity and promotions that may or may not be related to their primary goal.

Most teenagers find topics that turn them on, but are put down by friends and family. Very often this ends their dreaming and adapt to interest that is socially acceptable. Ask what motivates them? They answer “I don’t know.” Responsibilities of adult life drives’ the final nail into the coffin of dreams. We do not have to accept defeat; we can change our lifestyle and make dreams come true.

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It cost nothing to put life back into dreams. You start by researching, fantasizing, and visualizing yourself fulfilling your dream. To enhance the power of persistence, socialize with people with similar interest. We all have heroes. Adding a goal of doing something related to our hero’s activities will enhance persistence and motivation. These actions do not have to coast anything.

Taking action may require finding a new employer; acquire new skills and getting personal finances under control. Maxed out credit cards is a major barrier to controlling our lifestyle. In fact, with maxed out credit cards we are a slave to the credit card company. We spend all our time planning how to pay bills, not on the things we want to do. If we spend large amounts of time thinking about current problems, we cannot move very fast toward our goal. Acquiring new skills requires a love-to-learn. Cost can be kept under control with self-education techniques. People that can educate themselves are high on the opportunity list.

Once action has been taken we find ourselves at the right place at the right time that leads to opportunity. This is the activity of intuitive forces. While we are searching for opportunity there are others searching for something of related interest. Intuitive forces bring the two together. The effectiveness of this force is related to our level of persistence and motivation. This does not work for people that change their goal every month or have no goal at all.

Intuitive forces are little understood and cannot be depended on. But, they may be the support behind a single encounter or a series of encounters over years that lead to a successful conclusion. Sometimes intuitive forces create/allow failures until skills needed for success are acquired. Failure is a learning tool. Looking back at my experiences, I was at the right place at the right time too many times for it to be called an accident. Doors of opportunity opened many times that led to failure until experience and skills were acquired. Looking back, it is easy to see why early stages of some of my ambitions were failures. (More information on intuitive forces in the last section of this document.)

New opportunity requires decisions. Risk and fear of the unknown can be a barrier. Getting this far requires trust that the right decision is being made. If it was wrong, persistence is bouncing back and trying again.

Once action is taken you will be highly motivated. Unknowingly, motivated people radiate energy that is picked up by others. You will be asked to help them achieve their goals in the form of favors or job opportunity. This leads to the upward spiral of more opportunity. This is not available to people without a motivating goal.

My experiences with the above format

My dreams of jungle and sea adventures started during my early teens. At that time I had no money or skills, but I used the only resource available to me, the public library, dreaming, and fantasying. I joined the Sea Scouts, a unit of Boy Scouts of America. The dreaming stage went on for 10 years, slipping further and further away from possibilities with every year that passed. At the age of 25 I was living in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, living from payday to payday with creditors controlling my life. I worked for a company that paid low wages and abused its employees. I had no formal training as a machinist, but this was opportunity to acquire needed experience. In time I achieved the title of journeyman machinist. I then revived my teenage dreams and take action to make them happen. First action was to find employment with a company that took pride in its employees.

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I have a book titled “The Liki Tiki Story” that has details of events that took place. For this article I will start with my new employment with the Panama Canal Company, Panama. For the first time in my life I was working with highly motivated coworkers, who had dreams of their goals in life, but, like me, ran out of money to fulfill them. With high wages, socializing with people with similar interest, jungle environment one hour drive from my house, opportunity for carrying out my dreams of traveling down the Amazon River and crossing the Pacific Ocean became reality.

How did I get in an environment that opened doors of opportunity? Intuitive forces! It seems intuitive forces had a master plan and all I had to do was make the decision to follow my gut feelings without understanding why. For several years, event after event had me at the right place at the right time. An unknown force was supporting my goals. On the Amazon River I met four others traveling down river. We built a raft and the rest is history.

My dream of crossing the Pacific Ocean was inspired by my study of how the Polynesians populated the Pacific Islands from Hawaii, 5,000 miles south to New Zealand in dugout canoes. It was my goal to build a Polynesian boat in Tahiti and sail it to Hawaii. During the 1780s, Captain Cook recorded seeing dugout canoes 40-feet long. Today, trees that size are long gone in the Pacific Islands, but they are available 170 miles from where I lived in Panama and Indians with the skills needed to build them. My book “The Liki Tiki Story” has the details.

Along the way there were many failures, primary because I did not have the skills necessary to succeed. Every failure I acquired new skills and by bouncing back I was able to capitalize on them. This was repeated over and over until success came.

Employees at the Panama Canal Company are highly motivated. This is by design. The company has a bi-weekly newspaper with information about company activities. They also have articles about employees activities, on and off the job. My activities were always written up. Reading about coworkers achievements inspires others.

The company has employee training programs, helping them expand their skills or acquire new ones. I was sent to hardhat diving school at company expense. On the job, my income was greatly increased. The company has a policy of being a leader in adapting new technology. In 1980 personal computers were installed in offices and very few people knew how to use them. This was opportunity for people with self-education skills. At the time the only thing I knew about computers was what I read in Popular Science magazines. I was taken out of the machine shop, placed at a desk with a computer and a manual. No training program was available. My assignment; learn computer programming code (basic A) and write programs that are useful for people in the office. At this time, the only commercial software available was word processing (today’s Microsoft notepad) and very simple spread sheets. I retired as supervisor of the computer department. In third world countries like Panama, they do not have education opportunities like in the United States. People that get ahead have self-education skills.

Once I took action to fulfill the dream of my desired lifestyle, doors of opportunity were open wide.

A copy of my book “The Liki Tiki Story” can be downloaded at www.motivation-tools.com/downloads.htm

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Changing Your Lifestyle

We have the opinion that money can buy a desired lifestyle. Money cannot buy a lifestyle! A desired lifestyle is the result of a vision with a burning desire to reach a goal. Achievement is the result of planned action to bust through barriers to make desired events happen. Success, money and resulting lifestyle are rewards only, not goals.

What is success, money or a desired lifestyle? Our society measures success with money. A lifestyle of personal achievement is real success -- money is a reward or byproduct.

In 1964, I was living on the beach in Tahiti, building a replica of a Polynesian double hull boat with the goal of sailing it to Hawaii. My work site was next to a Polynesian village of five one-room homes, where most family members slept on the floor. The village shared one outhouse that had no door. The opening faced the main path that allowed one to talk to passer biers while attending to business. Women would take off their pareu and hang it on two hooks to close the opening. There was one shower stall with sheet metal sides about four feet high. Again, one could take a shower while talking to the neighbors. After dark, the teenagers would gather under coconut trees along the beach and sing - I would stand to one side and listen. Every morning a teenage girl set a pot of coffee and a loaf of French bread outside my tent before I got up. I was living a lifestyle I had dreamed of for years.

We all wish we could live a dramatic lifestyle. The difference between wishing and living is taking action to bust through barriers to make a desired lifestyle happen. The following is how I made my escape from a TV watcher to an adventurer in paradise.

My dream was to live on a beach in the South Pacific, chase Polynesian girls, build a traditional Polynesian boat and sail it from Tahiti to Hawaii.

At the age of 25, I was living in Oklahoma City trying to start my car in subzero weather, scraping ice from the windshield and driving to work on icy roads. At this time, I was picturing myself on a white sand beach somewhere in the tropical South Pacific. I was doing more than dreaming, I was working hard to overcome barriers that prevented me from making my dream come true. The first barrier was debts. I was living from payday to payday and "owed my soul to the company store" so to speak. Working for creditors was NOT an enjoyable lifestyle. The second barrier was friend’s negative reaction to my ambitions. They implied that it was time to grow up and forget childish dreams. It is next to impossible to carry out dreams in this environment. The third barrier was money, which soon became memory when the first two barriers were conquered.

Bob and the Liki Tiki he built while living on the beach in Tahiti.

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My creditors were controlling my destiny and lifestyle.

Living from payday to payday is a lifestyle that is easy to adapt because we can acquire materialistic wealth NOW. It does not matter if we make $20,000 or $100,000 a year, higher income means higher debts. An increasing debt load strengthens the payday-to-payday lifestyle while burying the elusive dream deeper in memory. Our social environment is another factor that controls the persistence needed to fulfill our dream. Success is easier when we have the support of family and friends, but this not always possible. When barriers become overpowering, most people succumb to being a slave to creditors and adapt to their current social environment. This is the path of least resistance.

Ask yourself; what is it you are seeking, money or lifestyle? Most people want money because they think they can buy a desirable lifestyle, so their primary goal is to wish for more money. Playing the lottery is an example of a wish - it is not possible to learn how to buy a winning lottery ticket. More money is not the result of a wish - it is the result of personal achievement, learning how to increase the value of our services. When I finished my 6-weeks training at hard-hat diving school, the value of my services went from $15 per hour to $45 per hour. Hard-hat diving was also a lifestyle I enjoyed and I was rewarded with money. (wage in 2003 dollars)

When we base our goal on personal achievement with a burning desire, self-discipline and persistence, we will find the money to reach our goal. It is not money first – it is the pursuit of achievement first – elements that cost nothing acquire. We must strive toward achievement with resources available at the time, learn to move ahead with what we have, however limited that may be.

My first goal was to put a halt to creditors controlling my lifestyle by learning to live within my income while paying off debts. My desired lifestyle of adventure would not tolerate debts. The year 1961 was the last time in my life I had a payday-to-payday debt burden. I then had the freedom and opportunity to search for employment in high paying companies and join social groups that supported my dreams of adventure. In my case, I found employment with the Panama Canal Company in Panama as a machinist. Panama is the crossroads of the world for adventures and this became my home base for jungle and sea adventures. The company’s bi-weekly newsletter often had articles about employees’ adventures. Panama’s newspaper, The Star & Herald, often wrote about adventures traveling through Panama. In this adventure charged environment I could tell of my ideas, get support and support others. In 1964, I was living on a beach in Tahiti with two forty-foot dugout canoes, fulfilling the dream of living in the South Sea Islands. Two years earlier, 1962, the opportunity to acquire these huge dugout canoes and ship them to Tahiti was impossible by all standards of reasoning. At that time, I had no debts, but I did not have any money either.

Bob was employed by the Panama Canal Company, Panama. He worked on the locks where they raise and lower the ships.

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To start, you need a vision of the person you want to be.

Being debt free and living a dynamic lifestyle sounds great to all of us. The reason most people only wish and do not act is because they have no clear vision of the person they want to be. All they know is they want more money. Without a clear vision, nothing is going to happen. Most people, in their youth, had a vision, but family and friends killed ambitions by making a mockery of their ideas. The pressure to be socially acceptable was strong and they gave up the dream, then the realities of adult responsibility sealed their fate. For people without a vision, the best way to start is to go back to their youth and dig up old dreams. Start researching and see where they lead.

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Develop Your Dream

Is day dreaming a form of education?

Does daydreaming bring opportunity?

If dreams are the beginning of opportunity, don’t they have value?

Three Types of Dreams

1. Socially acceptable dreams are based on professional skills that are looked upon, by society, with high esteem. Parents want their child to be an equivalent of an engineer, doctor, or lawyer. There are many high paying skills such as welder or machinist; that do not require a high school education. Society views these with low esteem; therefore, they are considered low ambition. Society encourages youth to avoid these skills, yet, many blue-collar skills pay more than a degree does.

2. Wishful thinking is the start of all dreams. It is the starter to get the motor running. For many, wishful thinking is used for all the wrong reasons, because their dreams are based on greed, to get something for nothing in return. There is no way to learn how to buy a winning lottery ticket and opportunity does not fall into people’s lap without giving something in return such as a skill. Many professionals seem to think their learning days are over when they mastered the basics and revert to wishful thinking.

3. Socially unacceptable dreams cannot be comprehended by the public. Original ideas attract criticism; and are considered unrealistic until proven valid. Many people cannot face criticism; therefore, they avoid innovative ideas. This is where innovators find opportunity.

How dramatic experiences puts dreams into action.

Hindsight observations:

From the time I was a teenager I had dreams of adventure, but did not have the courage to strike out on my own until I help crew a 36-foot sailboat from Hawaii to Los Angeles. On this trip, I carried with me a dream, to sail a dugout canoe across the Pacific Ocean. This experience gave me the courage to be a doer and carry it out. Three years later, I was living on a beach in Tahiti building the Liki Tiki.

Other crewmembers did not have a dream; they were there for the challenge or the fun of it. Because they did not have a dream, they were not inspired to reach higher goals. The trip was something to talk about.

Years of dreaming prepared me to get the most out of this dramatic experience. In other words, a dream with opportunity gets things done. A dramatic experience without a dream will do nothing.

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How I Started

I have always had socially unacceptable concepts. I found out later that my ambitions are unacceptable to people who live a different lifestyle than the one I wanted to live. When I associate with other adventures, my dreams become socially acceptable.

The book, Kon Tiki is a story how six men sailed a raft across the Pacific Ocean in 1948. Their adventure inspired my dream of duplicating their crossing of the Pacific Ocean. I added a dreamed of chasing Polynesian girls on the white sand beaches of the South Pacific. This dream motivated me to be an achiever and helped me find success. Society considers this type of dream to be socially unacceptable.

How can a dream of wild adventure have educational value? I was a teenager living in New Jersey with no remote possibility of hope or opportunity to do the things I dreamed about. I had no experience, knowledge of the sea or life outside of my hometown. Friends or family would not support my dream. In fact, my dream was the stupidest thing they ever heard of. In school, I was always starring out the windows and in my mind, I could see the bow of my sailboat plowing through the water, I could see myself exploring the jungles of South America and monkeys swinging through the trees. Then BANG!!! The teacher’s yardstick hitting my desk brought me back to the real world where none of the subjects related to my interest and dreamers are related to dummies.

A second book, unknowing, taught me the art of self-education. Chapman’s Piloting Seamanship & Small Boat Handling had twenty-seven comprehensive basic subjects, from nautical terms to weather to boating customs. All related to inland boating. The volume of information was overwhelming. I needed this knowledge if I were to sail to the South Pacific and chase girls.

In Chapman’s book, I started with the chapter on Rules of the Road. I made models of buoys, boats, and make-believe charts. With my models, I found it easy to absorb everything I read. I simulated ships approaching each other and maneuvering to keep from colliding or going aground. I simulated compass headings. I simulated wind and currents. Using string, I made a poster of knots. I studied chapters where subjects could be turned into objects. I turned information into knowledge because I had a dream and a goal, all of which related to my interest. I was motivated to learn about seamanship.

I showed the rules-of-the-road project to my science teacher. She told me to forget it, the subject was beyond my comprehension. If asked to write a report on the project, I could not,

As a teenager, the book Kon Tiki inspired Bob to seek a lifestyle of adventure.

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because I could not write clear thoughts on paper and models are not accepted as a substitute. Soon after that, I became tired of being labeled a student with no abilities and refused to go back to school. Today, I wonder if my project was beyond my teacher’s comprehension and she had no interest in it.

At the age of 17, I was working on a factory production floor on the midnight shift. I seemed to have an attitude and learning ability that impressed my bosses. They soon gave me task that required greater responsibility and I worked at every task with 110% effort. One assignment was to cut ceramic tubs into one inch lengths, (15,000) one at a time. The company never threw anything away and had piles of production equipment parts. I asked for permission to make a machine that would cut the tubs automatically. They agreed. After three days I completed a machine that would cut five at a time and all I had to do was feed a hopper. I received praise from my boss, coworkers. I was labeled as someone who is going places, the opposite of my school days. I was motivated and I needed money to buy my first boat. Because I was motivated, opportunity came my way.

I kept reading books and magazines on boating and the South Seas. Looking back, I was learning how-to-learn as well as a love-to-learn by using subjects that motivated me and a learning method that worked for me. I learned with objects and objects that had a purpose motivated me. By the age of thirty-five, I achieved every dream I had as a teenager, including chasing girls in Tahiti. One modification, I sailed across the Pacific Ocean in a dugout canoe, with outriggers instead of a raft.

Wild teenage dreams are considered to have little value and are discouraged by parents and friends. By the time people turn twenty, they are taught not to dream and accept life as they found it, the status quo. I refused to let my wild dreams die and refused to accept the life I was raised in. Without my wild dream of duplicating the Kon Tiki voyage, opportunity of becoming a hard-hat diver would never have happened. Without the Kon Tiki dream, I would never have become a Windjammer Captain. Without the Kon Tiki dream, hundreds of other adventure related experiences would never have happened. Persistent dreams are followed by opportunity.

The dreams I had were on the wild side and were not socially acceptable. I had to keep them to myself. Socially acceptable dreams are subjects that are taught in school. It is OK to say "I want to be a doctor." It is not OK to say "I want to sail a raft across the Pacific Ocean." It might be OK to say "I want to be a welder," but society associates medal trades with low ambition. Yet, the medal trade is where I found the money to be successful.

Bob and his cat Salty – sailing the Liki Tiki Too, 5,000 miles, from Panama to Hawaii.

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Dreams First, Education Second

I was a Captain of a windjammer for motivating teenagers and witnessed the rapid change in their lives. There is no experience like being far at sea on a dark night at the helm with a full moon shining on billowing sails high above. The wind in the sails and the waves splashing on the hull gives a feeling of personal power, "I can do anything." While steering the ship, other crewmembers are on deck playing a guitar and singing. This is the time when dreams are made and realizing we can take the helm of our life and steer it to our destination.

With a dream, information is easy to process into knowledge. Money to reach our dream also becomes easier to acquire. People with a dream act differently, they seem to have meaning and purpose to their life. Bosses and customers favor positive attitudes and offered opportunity, which means higher income, usually. An upward spiral of high intensity motivation and opportunity continue to follow.

In the formal education world, most technical colleges require students to have a GED certificate or better before they can learn welding or machine shop skills. This system requires all people to be an intellectual before they are allowed to develop dreams. As a result, most would-be welders or machinists, who are technical, never have a chance. What if windjammer-training programs required all students to have a GED certificate and, required all students to read a compass and plot a course before they could come aboard? There would be empty ships, never developed dreams and lost opportunity. Experience builds dreams and a dream motivates people to learn.

Technical colleges are intended for technical people who learn differently than intellectuals. Instead of heavy academic requirements, build dreams first, and then insert academics as students discover the need for them. The concept "opportunity first then knowledge" motivates people to learn. It works aboard windjammers, why not in school?

Society Attacks Dreamers

All children dream and play make-believe. For some reason, as they grow older, they are instructed to stop dreaming and face reality. Reality seems to be important, whether it be friends, parents or teachers. Academic education has top priority while dreams have low priority. Yet, there has never been an achievement that did not begin with a dream. There has never been success without many failures. Why is it that society wants everyone to succeed without failure? Why does society have a need to kill dreams, especially with teenagers?

During the dreaming stage, one is alone with his seemly impossible ideas. When talking about ideas, the first reaction is... "Where did he get that nutty idea?" All great inventors and achievers go through this phase, especially during the failure days. After a few successes, people say nothing about wild ideas. Add a few more successes; everyone will support any idea you have.

It takes persistence to find what works. Only you realize your ideas have possibilities, the public will not realize possibilities until you prove them to be of value. After the Wright Brothers invented the airplane and proved man can fly, it took two years before anyone thought flying was a practical idea. The U.S. Army rejected consideration of the invention outright. All through the development years, people considered The Wright Brothers nuts. To shield

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themselves from criticism, they only informed people who could help them and took criticism, if necessary, for their help.

Employers want motivated people. The problem is, they want employees' motivation to be built around the company’s interest. If I applied for a job and said, "my ambition is to earn money to buy a boat, sail to the South Seas and chase girls," I would be escorted out the door. The theory is, people whose ambitions are different from the company’s will not be dedicated to their job. The fact is, people with ambitions are dedicated to anyone who will help them reach their goals. People who don’t have dreams or ambitions are not motivated and are not dedicated to anything except the paycheck.

Many people yield to dream killers. In their thoughts, "my friends are right, my ideas are all nutty" and give up. This belief may be true when first exploring an idea. There is no such thing as success on the first try, except in the classroom. Giving up is losing ambition, opportunity, higher income, and eventual success. A downward spiral of self-esteem follows.

Bob and his friends on their Amazon River Raft - 1963

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Setting Goals

The common formula for success is: "Set a goal and a time-frame for achieving it." The goal is what you want to achieve and the time frame is to help you stay focused on the goal. Perseverance brings success."

In the above statement, the term "time frame" has conditions. Three basic elements must be under full control - skills, resources, and support. A completion date cannot be established with weak or missing elements.

Elements

1. Skills - knowledge, experience, natural talent

Super achievers have ambitions and goals that are in harmony with their natural talents. Someone who has natural a talent for composing music will have a low efficiency rating developing mechanical designs. Someone who has natural talent for mechanical designs will have a low efficiency rating for composing music. (There are exceptions, but they are rare.) It is important to discover your natural talent and set goals that are in harmony with it. This discovery may be difficult, but it is generally related to personal interest or what motivates you.

2. Resources - ownership, resources, money

Money is a very important resource that must be managed wisely. You cannot control resources if creditors are in control. Super achievers have learned to live within their means.

3. Support - people, organizations

Socialize with people who have similar interest.

Examples

Contractors that bid on jobs must have required skills, resources and support in place. They cannot hope they are doing it right or have the required resources. Success depends on accurate estimates of cost and job time.

Businesses that succeed have all elements in place. Many new entrepreneurs fail because they lack one or more of the elements. Lack of knowledge and experience is the primary reason for failure. However, failure is a learning tool and persistence will acquire all the elements for success.

Education organizations apply all the elements needed for student success. There is a goal and a time frame to reach that goal. All a student has to do is accept the terms.

Most major goals require mini goals. Acquiring skills can be considered a mini goal. The same can be said for resources. When a new entrepreneur finally puts it all together and succeeds, he is elated and starts setting bigger goals. At this time, the process starts all over again. With experience on what it takes to get it right, setbacks are not as severe.

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Pitfalls for the inexperienced - When we observer a professional achieving results, we think, "I can do that, look how easy it is." Should we try to do the same thing, we soon discover that success is the result of skills, hard work and persistence. This is why people fall for get-rich-quick offers. It is presented in a way that looks simple and easy, only to discover it does not work that way. When the money is gone, there is little to show for it.

To do - Set a goal and strive to achieve that goal no matter how long it takes. With similar goals in the future, you will have the skills needed to set a time frame for achievement.

We become what we think about all day. If we are focused on our goal, we will achieve it. If we spend all day thinking about our debts – debts is all we ever have. In this case, creditors are controlling our lives. The only way to stop thinking about debts is to get them under control and then you can focus on your goals.

A person does not know what they are capable of until they try. Trying and failing is better than not trying at all.

Remember - Money, power, and influence are not goals – they are rewards ONLY

for personal achievement.

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A Goal Is a Journey of Decisions

A goal is a desire that sends us on a journey using decisions to transport us to an unknown destination. Very often, this destination is vague because we encounter opportunities/experiences that change our thinking which changes our direction. One thing is certain; the destination will be exhilarating or discouraging. On this journey, we set priorities and make decisions, which will prevent or create problems.

Journeys of unknown destinations require experiments. Every reasonable idea must be tried and tested. Testing ideas, results in gaining experience, which increases our knowledge. Very often, decisions give us an uncomfortable gut feeling long before we know the results. Gut feelings are intuitive forces that are signaling us to consider other options. If our lives were not filled with so many emotions, gut feeling would be a reliable alert-flag that would prevent problems or lead us to opportunity

Some decisions may help for a short while, and then they become wrong. A needed service or information was acquired that will be needed in the future. It is discouraging that something seems right, and then turns wrong, but this is normal. As we gain experience, quality choices become obvious.

In reality, every decision is a success. The results may not be what we had in mind, but we gain valuable experience, that will influence future decision-making. Anyhow, we know what works and does not work.

In our imaginary journey the path winds around an imaginary lake named Lake Success. On the other side, we see potential customers waving money around and we want to get over there fast. The path around Lake Success requires that we acquire many skills. The only way we can safely arrive is to stay on the path and learn what it takes to make every step right. At the end, we will have quality information to make quality decisions. With this information, we can control the results.

But, there is a distraction. On the other side of the lake, we see customers waving money. Easy money is extremely tempting. We are tempted to take a short cut, swim over and grab it. We may be dragging a heavy debt load and new money would relieve this burden. There are a hundred valid reasons to take shortcuts so we will try.

While swimming across the lake we focus on the money and off the service that first motivated us. We make costly unwise decisions that created many costly problems. If the debt load does not drown us into total failure, we will be forced back to shore and on the path, poorer but wiser. There are no rewards until we learn to complete tasks right. We must stay focused on what we want to accomplish, not the money. Money, power, and influence are rewards only, not goals. Only winners reap the rewards, because winners focus on doing jobs right.

Some people will succeed in crossing the lake, taking shortcuts, but they never learn how to do jobs' right. People who had some success with shortcuts will always use shortcuts. If it worked once, it will work again, so they reason. For them, rewards will be limited and growth will not be possible because a shortcut is a loser.

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Learning to Make Quality Decisions

We need to find the correct path. With each step, we will learn how to complete small projects. At the end, we will collect all the small accomplishments and combine them into a successful achievement.

Knowing what path we are on, we can make quality decisions that will guide us to our goal. Others can help if they know what our goal is.

We need to learn how to prevent problems. Problems are caused by a lack of knowledge, not bad luck. Lack of knowledge destroys dreams, not money.

As leaders, we need to know how to bring the best out of people. No one knows what their true potential is until opportunity presents itself.

The rewards of success are money, power, and influence.

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How I made My Dreams Come True

My story begins in Summit, NJ, at the age of sixteen, where I am sitting in a classroom starring out the window. Out of the first window I could see myself exploring the jungles of South America searching for gold, I could see myself drifting down the Amazon River on a raft, I could see monkeys swinging through the trees, I could see myself as Tarzan swinging on a vine. Through the next window, I could see the bow of my sailboat plowing through the towering waves, heading toward the South Pacific. I could see myself on a white sand beach chasing girls.

Then BANG! The teacher's yardstick hitting my desk brought me back to the real world where subjects did not relate to my interest and dreamers are related to dummies. In a loud voice the teacher said, "You are a failure! If you don't pay attention you will continue to be a failure!"

When the bell rang, instead of going to the next class I walked out of school never to return. I was tired of being called a failure. Right or wrong, I took charge of my future. When I left school, I carried the single most important element for success... A DREAM. During the next twenty years, every one of my teenage dreams came true.

You may be asking, "How does one make their dreams come true?" There are three elements:

First - We must have a dream that motivates us. No one has ever achieved anything without a dream attached to a burning desire.

Second - We must learn how-to-learn. In school, we learn how to memorize or be taught. Learning how to learn frees our dependency on others for knowledge.

Third - We must learn from failure and learn how to bounce back from failure. No one ever succeed without failure. In the classroom, failure is a no-no.

In my early teens, I read the book Kon Tiki. This is a story about six Norwegians sailing a raft across the Pacific Ocean. Their adventure inspired my dream of duplicating their raft voyage. As a teenager with normal parents, a dream like this was considered ridiculous. Not only did friends and family not support my dream, they told me to get serious. But the Kon Tiki dream turned me on. I wanted to know more about the ocean world and how it could be challenged. I went to the public library looking for more books and found plenty.

Bob preparing for a dive in the Locks of the Panama Canal.

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During the next few years, I joined the Seas Scouts, read boating magazines, studied nautical books, and went to boat shows. To help understand seamanship techniques, I made model charts, buoys, and boats. With models, comprehension was easy. Unknowingly, I was learning the art of learning how-to-learn — self-education — a technique that would follow me the rest of my life, a technique that would bring me success and make my wildest dreams come true.

At the age of nineteen, during the Korean War, I was in the Marine Corps and in Japan. On my first day of duty an officer told me, "You are a machinist and will be in charge of the machine shop." As he gave me the shop keys, he pointed to a trailer. In the Marine Corps, everything is on wheels. When I opened the doors, I had my first look ever at a machine shop. In the shop was one short instruction manual titled "How to Run a Lathe." When a job came in, I followed the manual's instructions. I was surprised at my ability to complete assigned tasks. The Marine Corps experience launched my machinist career. It also made me realize that learning how-to-learn is a powerful tool. For example, every manmade object around us is the result of someone's dream and failures. Consider the light bulb. Thomas Edison believed something could burn white-hot and not burn up. A wild unrealistic dream? Everyone knows everything burns up in a short time. A thousand failures later, Thomas Edison burned a steel wire white hot that never burned up. Continuous white heat creates light.

Opportunity is attracted to people with a dream. They are the first to be hired, first to be offered opportunity, and first to be promoted. Bigger the dream the faster doors open. People without a dream are last to be hired, last to be promoted and first to be laid-off in a force reduction. For non-dreamers, doors remain closed. WHY? People with a dream act differently than non-dreamers. Dreamers develop an attitude that radiates energy; they have a sense of purpose and meaning to their lives. Radiant energy is an attitude that bosses like and to which they offer opportunity. This is how the impossible becomes possible.

When I was discharged from the Marine Corps, I decided people were right, my wild teenage dream was ridicules. Real people do not drift across oceans on rafts. I am now an adult, I should think and act like one. The raft dream was dead. For the next five years my life went nowhere, my ambition, hope, dreams were gone. Something else was also gone — opportunity that came fast during my earlier years also dried up.

One day I dusted off the Kon Tiki book. My dream jumped off the pages and came to life. I said to myself, "I must find a way!" Two years later, I was in Hawaii and learned how the Polynesian people populated the Pacific Islands in dugout canoes 1,000 years ago. My dream was changed from a raft to a dugout canoe. At this time, opportunity came back and fast.

Bob swinging on a vine in the jungles of Panama

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I helped crew a 36-foot sailboat from Hawaii to California. This provided my ocean sailing experience. Next, I was hired by the Panama Canal Company, Panama. Soon, my supervisor asked me to attend hard-hat diver school at company expense. With this skill, money was no longer a problem.

A short time later, I was living on a beach in Tahiti building a 40-foot Polynesian double-hull boat named Liki Tiki. The hulls were built by Choco Indians in the Darien Providence of Panama and shipped to Tahiti. I built the boat according to popular theory and information supplied by the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. Three days at sea convinced me the double-hull theory was wrong. The two hulls worked against each other and would soon breakup.

Back in Panama, I took the problem to the Indians in the Darien Jungle. They said, "Outriggers is what works." I then succeed in sailing a 36-foot dugout canoe with outriggers, named Liki Tiki Too, from Panama, 5,000 miles, to Hawaii.

Opportunity never stopped. For the Navy Undersea Center Hawaii I help develop a two-man Plexiglas submarine. Moving back to the Panama Canal Zone, I learned five computer languages and became supervisor of the computer department, I became Captain of the Canal Zone's training schooner Chief Aptakisic on which we took a group of teenagers to New York. My wife and I spent five years sailing the South Pacific Ocean in our own 50-foot sail boat, Hunky-Dory, which I designed and self-built. Opportunity came my way because I could educate myself, was motivated and did not let a wild teenage dream die.

The above experiences are the results of developing a love to learn through interactive projects and learning how to process knowledge versus collecting knowledge.

Bob dredging for gold in the jungles of Panama. 1968

Bob was captain of the Canal Zone training schooner, Chief Aptakisic.

Bob somewhere in the mid-Pacific Ocean aboard the Liki Tiki Too. 1970

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Three Elements of Motivation

Motivation starts with the desire to be free, to be free from dependency on others, freedom to live the lifestyle we dream of, freedom to explore our ideas. Total freedom is not possible or desirable, but the struggle to achieve that ideal is the basis for motivation.

Motivation is built on three basic elements:

1. Motivation starts with a need, vision, dream or desire to achieve the seemingly impossible. Creativity is associated with ideas, projects and goals, which can be considered a path to freedom.

2. Developing a love-to-learn lifestyle, become involved with risky ventures and continually seek new opportunities. Success is the result of learning what works and does not work.

3. Develop the ability to overcome barriers and to bounce back from discouragement or failure. Achievers learn to tolerate the agony of failure. In any worthwhile endeavor, barriers and failure will be there. Bouncing back requires creative thinking as it is a learning process. In addition, bouncing back requires starting again at square one.

A loss of any one part and motivation is on the rocks. For example:

If you like to be creative and love to learn but cannot face up to failure, you will not go back and try again. Persistent is associated with bouncing back.

If you have a unique idea but don’t like taking risks, ideas is all you will ever have.

There must be something in your life that turns you on. You can start by analyzing the lifestyle of your dreams. Remember, money is not a goal, it is a reward for achieving a goal.

Let's see how the parts work with Charlie’s family, a true story.

I was building a 50-foot wooden sailboat. During construction there were many visitors and one family stood out. Charlie would bring his three teenage sons on board, who seemed to be excited about everything they saw. They would focus on a construction method or potential problem and exchange ideas on its strong and weak points, or discus other ways to achieve the same results. Charlie would ask leading questions and his sons would have answers, each one trying to give a better answer. When one teen presented a possible dumb idea, the others did not put him down, they countered with other possibilities.

It was not only on my boat they excised creative thinking -- this was their life style, always asking why and offering other possibilities. They had a workshop where family

members could work on projects. They needed "U" bolts for one of their projects. After threading a steel rod at both ends, they needed to bend them. They made a furnace from a five-gallon bucket and used the blower end of a vacuum cleaner for draft. They buried the rods in the red-hot charcoal. When pulling them out they had stubs. The fire was so hot it melted the steel. They did not realize how hot the furnace was. The only way to learn and get experiences is to try.

Influence and Lifestyles

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Farther and sons were a team that focused on creativity. A wild idea was something to embrace and develop. The teens were excited about life and highly motivated.

Charlie kept active the three legs of motivation:

1. Creativity was encouraged with the understanding there was no dumb idea. At this time, they had no goals that I know of.

2. To maintain the love-to-learn, they had a workshop, providing opportunity to experiment with ideas and develop projects.

3. Most ideas did not work, but with each try they learned something, especially what did not work. They were learning from failure and learning to bounce back from it.

By keeping all three-motivation elements active, Charlie’s sons were highly motivated. Creative thinking was promoted and supported. In the adult world, their creative skills will find a profitable market. More important, they will not have to overcome negative barriers carried over from their teen years.

Compare Charlie to parents who are always putting down any idea their children might present. A gulf develops between them and soon the teen keeps all thoughts to them self. Many parents consider children’s wild ideas something to grow out of. This is the killing of creativity, the first leg of motivation. Putting down ideas is teaching children to accept the status quo. Forcing children to accept the status quo is the building of barriers. In the adult word, most never overcome these barriers.

Let's consider Ken’s parents who do not support or discourage, wild ideas, but tolerate them.

Ken is a typical thirteen-year-old boy, who is being exposed to truck loads of information via Internet, TV, and printed matter. He does not do well in school and his reading is not up to par, but he does work on self-motivated projects that interest him. He scans a variety of projects, usually related to a broad theme such as computers, mechanics or electronics. As time passes it becomes obvious that his interest is narrowing to flying, he reads more on this subject that any other. He is becoming focused and wants to engage in flying projects, so as to be connected. Teenagers, without support, don’t have many resources. Ken uses what he has, that is, cutting out pictures of airplanes and/or assembles plastic airplane models. For resourceful teens, this limited opportunity offers ways to be creative. Simple projects turn into elaborate projects, as resources become available, flying radio control models, for example. Somewhere along the way, a burning desire is developing and this desire is associated with natural talent.

Ken is at a crossroads. School is telling him he is a failure while his flying interest is teaching him the art of how-to-learn in a natural learning environment. He is under pressure by parents and teachers to give classroom studies priority. How will he react?

Under pressure, every teen reacts differently. If Ken’s ambition is crushed, he may or may not bounce back again. Without support, teens give up easily and sometimes turn to rebellion where they take on self-destructive goals. Formal education and flying ambitions are dead. Motivation is dead.

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If Ken's parents recognized his natural interest and supported it, he could achieve the impossible.

As adults, most of us had our teenage dreams putdown and we accepted the status quo. Trying to bring old dreams back to life again is extremely difficult. The barriers are huge, but they can be overcome.

At-risk youth are in the process of rejecting the status quo. The problem is, they reject everything and become losers. All of us were born with a natural desire to learn and be an achiever. During our teen years, we were pressured to accept the status quo and we reacted to that pressure. At-risk youth can be a reminder of what we went through.

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7 Rules of Motivation

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#1 Set a major goal, but follow a path. The path has mini goals that go in many directions. When you learn to succeed at mini goals, you will be motivated to challenge grand goals.

#2 Finish what you start. A half finished project is of no use to anyone. Quitting is a habit. Develop the habit of finishing self-motivated projects.

#3 Socialize with others of similar interest. Mutual support is motivating. We will develop the attitudes of our five best friends. If they are losers, we will be a loser. If they are winners, we will be a winner. To be a cowboy we must associate with cowboys.

#4 Learn how to learn. Dependency on others for knowledge supports the habit of procrastination. Man has the ability to learn without instructors. In fact, when we learn the art of self-education we will find, if not create, opportunity to find success beyond our wildest dreams.

#5 Harmonize natural talent with interest that motivates. Natural talent creates motivation, motivation creates persistence and persistence gets the job done.

#6 Increase knowledge on subjects that inspires. The more we know about a subject, the more we want to learn about it. A self-propelled upward spiral develops.

#7 Take risk. Failure and bouncing back are elements of motivation. Failure is a learning tool. No one has ever succeeded at anything worthwhile without a string of failures.

Analyze Your Comfort Zone

The Comfort Zone is our living, work, and social environments that we have grown accustom too. It determines the type of friends we make or people we

associate with. It determines a life style we accept or reject.

Young people are very adaptable, they can adjust to changing comfort zones with ease. They can socialize with homeless people in the morning and be equally at east at a formal banquet in the evening. As we age, the ability to adapt to wide-ranging comfort zones, becomes more difficult. Social prejudice narrows the comfort zone range. Our present comfort zone is in one of the following conditions.

We want to maintain our current comfort zone.

We are dissatisfied with current conditions and want to move to another comfort zone.

We were suddenly thrust from our comfort zone and want back in.

We need to make decisions without supporting facts. The comfort zone can be a decision making tool.

If you were content with your current comfort zone, you would not be reading this booklet. Because you are reading, it is assumed you want to make some changes in the way you live and work. That brings us to step two. If you are dissatisfied with your life style, you can change it by changing your comfort zone.

Comfort zones are directly related to our dreams or goals, which is associated with self-fulfilling prophecy. In order to grow and change, we must first be discontent with our current comfort zone. To change to different life style, establishing a business, or succeeding at a challenging project, we must realize that all meaningful and lasting changes occur first in daydreaming (fantasizing) and then they work their way into reality. If we clearly and vividly imagine ourselves being and having the things we truly want, we will create a new picture of ourselves. The old comfort zone, in time, will be unacceptable and we will find ways to acquire the new.

For example, if we want to sail the South Pacific in our own sailboat, we must clearly and vividly, image ourselves sitting in the cockpit of our boat and think about the challenge this environment would bring. This includes accepting the dangers along with the pleasures. The key to upgrading our comfort zone is to raise our self-image and level of what we expect or want first, then we will find opportunity to make the goal reality.

The more clearly and vividly we fantasize our dream, with frequent repetitions and emotional impact, the stronger and more real the pictures on the subconscious level will become. Once our subconscious accepts this image and its expectation, the subconscious will go to work, searching for a way to bring it into reality. If we feel that these things are too good for us, we will find ways to fail. If, however, we intentionally use our imagination to:

Imagine the change we want.

Build an expectation of the change.

Mentally and emotionally, prepare ourselves for the change by anticipating what it will be

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like.

We will find ways to acquire dream and, when mentally ready, it will arrive faster than we ever thought possible. In effect, what we are doing is deliberately preparing for self-fulfilling prophecy. As has been repeated many times, "Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve."

For some people, problems, suffering, poverty, bad breaks are their comfort zone. Try to take away these problems and they will fight back. They find comfort in finding fault and complaining about their misfortune. The same is true for businesses. Daily crisis, employees making bad decisions, accidents, trivial problems, confrontation between management and workers is a workforce comfort zone. Management and workers have grown accustom to seeing things go wrong and expect them too. Management finds comfort in finding fault with workers and workers find comfort in finding fault with management.

Negative comfort zones can be overcome by setting and thinking about positive goals. What we think about all day and what we expect, be it positive or negative, is our comfort zone.

Note: If the comfort zone we are seeking is beyond our current income, then, we need to develop a service that has greater value than our current one. Money, power and influence are not goals, they are rewards ONLY for personal achievement.

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Motivational Speakers

Emotional Reaction and Rhetoric Hype

Note: In the article below I exclude one-on-one sales people from my comments on rhetoric hype. There are people who sell because they love it, and there are people in the sales force only for the money. For the latter, they may need emotional hype to keep going. People who are in a profession they love, don't need a steady diet of emotional rhetoric, natural charisma does the selling.

A good motivational speaker is a pleasure to listen to and can inspire us to keep pushing when nothing seems to be happening. An occasional motivation seminar can make us feel good and can produce positive results. On the other hand, it is not all roses; there is a dark side.

Emotional hype can become a trap.

We all want to feel we're on top of the world and motivational speakers can make us feel we are there. After our first experience, we want to hear others, and each seems to have the ability to send us to a new high. With a steady flow of motivational material, addiction is sure to follow. At this time, the passive follower becomes hooked; and has changed his primary goal. The new goal, "seek and maintain an emotional high." By maintaining an emotional high, he feels his goals are just around the corner. All he has to do is maintain a vision, have positive attitudes and maintain that good feeling. His new goal is emotional highs with his former goal as a tool to get there. An addict becomes dependent on motivational material to maintain this illusion and, in time, can't live without them.

The art of positive thinking will not replace required knowledge or the ability to make right decisions.

Positive attitudes will provide persistence until knowledge and quality decision skills are acquired.

Success is the result of knowledge, learning how to get it right.

When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, it is reported that he tried a thousand times before he found a way to burn a steel wire white hot that did not burn up. A thousand failures is not motivating and does not make one feel good. Back in his day, there was no such thing as a motivational speaker. So what kept him bouncing back from repeated failure? A desire to explore and discover the world he lived in, a desire to learn, and a desire to do the impossible. He loved the challenge and accepted the disappointments. His belief that something could burn white hot and not burn up was the laughing stock of the scientific world. This is a depressing feeling, not a feel-good feeling. The fact is, success is the result of bouncing back during times of discouragement without dependency on others. Thomas Edison used discouragement as a stepping-stone to achievement. Each failure was a challenge to try harder.

If discouragement is the stepping-stone to success, then motivational speakers should support depressing feelings. But then, who wants to hear about discouragement, something we experience frequently without outside help? The fact is, emotional hype sells. A steady diet of feeling-good does not produce winners, but it produces wealth for the promoters. A steady flow of emotional hype is a cover-up that leads us into a false sense of progresses. There is no

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creativity in emotional hype other than ideas sound good. People don't remember ideas, they remember feeling good. Many people spend money and time getting an emotional high rather than trying ideas and taking risk. They lose sight of their primary goal.

Motivation is a complex subject and it is easy to go in the wrong direction. Some dead-end paths to consider:

Everyone has a goal of more money, but few are willing to develop a plan, provide a service, or take risk to make it happen.

Money is not a goal; money is a reward for achieving a goal that provides a service to others.

Goals of money (greed) become self-destructive. Money by itself is not motivating; we always want more which leaves no sense of accomplishment.

Most people turn off their desire to learn after they acquire a professional skill that meets basic needs. At that time, motivation is replaced with wishful thinking. They dream but don't act with a hundred reasons why they can't act. Many replace action with emotional hype.

We have all been in organizations where they tried to increase membership or increase income above the normal with little results. They use emotional rhetoric, contest or games to motivate members into action. There is no analysis of current policy, which may be the source of their problems. They want to achieve more with the same policy. People as a group, does not want change and will fight change if someone tried to do things differently. At the same time, people are greedy; they want more of something without making any policy changes.

What is true for organizations is true for individuals. The older we get, the stronger our resistance to change becomes and the stronger our desire for greed becomes. We do not want to learn new skills that could bring the desired lifestyle, so we embrace methods that give the allusion of achieving results. Greed is in control, not self-development. This is not the way winners are made. Winners continually analyze what they are doing right and wrong and learn how to correct the wrong. They acquire knowledge by taking risk, tying different ways to achieve the desired results. They learn to bounce back from discouragement and failure without outside help.

If you love what you are doing, you are not dependent on others for motivation. BUT, an occasional motivational seminar can be extremely inspiring. Coupling this with a learning process that's related to your goal, you will be a winner.

Some self-motivating goals:

Advancing in an organization. Each step is clear and is recognized by others. Recognition is a powerful motivating force.

Developing ideas. Creativity is a natural self motivator. We want to prove to ourselves that we can do it.

Adventure -- Exploring is learning more about the world we live in. Exploring is a high-powered learning environment.

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Providing a service that others want and are willing to pay for.

Seeking continual change and adapting to it. Very often, this is related to achieving a goal, then going after another. This requires the desire to maintain a continual learning environment. The result is bragging rights.

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Perseverance

The common argument for failure is "I lost interest or I didn’t have enough money." While true, neither one is valid.

Motivation depends on many factors with the primary factor being the power of your dreams. Money is one of the barriers that can be overcome. Achievement requires developing attitudes/habits that keep you on track. Example, develop a habit of getting jobs done with resources available. With this skill, creativity will eliminate many money problems. Persistence is a combination of factors such as a burning desire and pride, that programs the comfort zone to pressure us to keep bouncing back. We try again, but in a different direction. It is important to implement many motivational tools so the project will keep moving when we don’t feel like it. In time, motivation will drive us even when the going becomes strenuous and we wish the project would go away. We all have times of weakness. Persistence may seem steady in others, but in reality, it flows like the ocean tide.

Fantasizing

Fantasizing is a startup tool to precondition the mind to believe it must achieve a clearly defined goal. Fantasizing is creating pictures in our mind on how we would react to events if our dream were real. Fantasizing has several important elements.

Fantasizing creates a burning desire.

Fantasizing prepares our mind to accept opportunity when it arrives. Without this preparation we would not recognizes opportunity or if we did, fear would set in and we would reject it.

Fantasizing is a type of business plan written in our head. Questions are being asked, what will it take to make this idea work and how will problems be handled?

People, who seem to make quality decisions when everything goes wrong, had fantasized theses problems during the years when their idea was just a dream. To illustrate how fantasizing programs our mind, I will use an experience my wife and I had aboard our 50-foot sailboat Hunky-Dory. We were sailing from North Carolina to Bermuda when, after dark, the wind was blowing above 60 knots and the main sail was still up. If I didn’t get the sail down the mast would come down. Waves were coming aboard and covering our ports. From inside the cabin we could see the underside of waves. I had never experienced this kind of wind or seas except by fantasizing.

I said to my wife, "I must go on deck and take the sails down."

She hollered, "Don’t go on deck." She had never thought about a situation like this and her first reaction was to make believe nothing damaging would happen.

I said, "I must go topside into the storm, there is no choice. If the mast comes down we will be helpless."

I put on my safety harness and crawled to the bow. With tremendous wind pressure on the sail, I had to winch down the main sail. My wife stood in the partly open hatch and helped by pulling on the sheets. If she fell, she would fall into the cabin, not in the ocean. My confidence

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gave her confidence and we got the sail down. In my youth, I fantasized situation like this. This time it was not fantasy, it was real.

Fantasizing during the years before opportunity is the difference between can-do leaders in a crisis and followers. It prepares people for the day when dreams become reality. I prepared my mind to accept the fact that being lost at sea is a real possibility. Accepting the worst makes risk possible. And we must take risk in order to succeed.

Burning Desire

A burning desire is the result of active fantasizing. It puts powerful motivating forces into action. It can overcome all self-imposed limits. Natural skills and learning methods may be barriers, but they are temporary. It has more potential than any education system can offer, because, to succeed, knowledge is needed to be the best we can be. If there is a destiny, this is where it starts.

Sometimes a dramatic personal impact, known or unknown causes a burning desire. This experience reveals a need for more information or services to help deal with it. Trying to understand, leads to knowledge, action, and/or opportunity. Sometimes it is necessary or advantages to take action before knowledge is acquired. In any case, a dramatic experience is highly motivating and all stops should be removed to benefit from it.

We all have a basic desire to be lazy. This is a powerful motivating force because we dream of being lazy and we work hard to fulfill that dream. It doesn’t sound right, but it’s true. People work hard to be lazy. Then there are people who don’t dream about being lazy, they are.

There are two types of laziness:

Constructive laziness increases creative skills because we don’t like to do more work than necessary. People search for the easiest way to get jobs done. They also work hard for opportunity, to enjoy what life has to offer. The desire to be lazy is a motivating force.

Destructive laziness is associated with people who are not motivated, the desire to do less takes over. They feel robbed of opportunity and the world passes them by.

One of my goals was to sail to the South Pacific, chase girls and lay under coconut trees. I worked hard to achieve that dream. Once in the South Pacific, I found sitting under coconut trees had no challenge and I was in the habit of seeking new challenging projects. Also, I was married, which nicked the girl chasing idea. Anyhow, my dream got me to the South Pacific in my sailboat, which was the primary goal. Many people readjust priorities when they face reality. In the meantime, dreaming produces perseverance with positive results.

Doors of opportunity opened many times that led to failure until experience and skills were acquired.

But, every failure was a step toward success.

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Bouncing Back From Failure

Do you see the possibilities of an idea, project or goal? Are you experiencing barriers that prevents fulfillment? With every idea, there are barriers, hundreds of them, if not more.

If you vision something that is different from everyone else, there are two reasons, you have an idea that few have considered or it is not practical. How do you tell good ideas from bad one’s, research and listening to people’s reasons why it won’t work? As a rule, no one will support an original idea until there is sufficient evidence that it is practical. Even when proving it is practical, people may reject it. Fifty years after the light bulb was invented, some people still rejected it. You have to do all the legwork to find evidence. If you find evidence, skills and resources must be acquired at the same time everyone is telling you the idea is dumb. This is a very difficult barrier to overcome. You see the possibilities and potential of a project while everyone else sees the risk and barriers. Also note, there is no success where research, facing up to pros and cons, is not extensive. Evaluate negative opinions to stay on the right track. Without negative opinions, it is easy to stray off course. The original concept of the light bulb was a dumb idea.

Negative opinions can discourage one to give up. For this reason, it becomes necessary to limit exposure of the project to people who can help, even if they disapprove. Even a select group will not see the potential until you succeed. When you do succeed, others will no longer see the barriers, they are gone, they will want to know how you did it.

What if the idea turns into a total failure? You learned a lot and next time you may get it right and succeed. No achiever has arrived without failure.

“If everything you do works, you are not trying hard enough.”

"I want to find people who have had to work hard and who have learned from their failures. Perseverance is no guarantee you'll succeed, but without it, it's

almost guaranteed you won't"

Steve Case, CEO of America on Line

Overcoming Failure

Failure Can Be Positive or Negative

Failure is a learning tool. Thomas Edison failed a thousand times before he invented the light bulb. Failure is trying to do things others have not considered. It is a temporary byproduct of creativity. It is challenging the learning process. It is experiential education at work. The real winners in life tolerate failure and the agony it produces. Success is achieved by those who are willing to take risk and lose.

Many people choose to engage in occupations and activities that are safe and conventional. They do not deliver satisfaction, fulfillment or joy in living. Their real failure is failing to move in the directions of their dreams.

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Most franchise, copying ideas and get-rich-quick schemes can be deadly traps. They come with high approval rating and no negative opinions. Their success is praised while the facts may be distorted. People believe what they want to, and easy success is what we want to hear. For this reason, there is little independent research, which leads to disaster. What if the fantastic project turns into total failure? What does it feel like to be a sucker? Buying into a promotion is like playing the lottery, there is no way to learn how to buy a winning lottery ticket.

Failure is a learning tool. Our first reaction to failure is to blame anyone/anything but ourselves. If we perceive others are to blame, then there is nothing we can do to correct the problem. We cannot change people’s personalities, neither can they change ours. If we assume responsibility, then we can analyze what went wrong and take corrective action. This is the art of bouncing back from failure.

Failure is discouraging, it drains energy and resources, but it forces us to do things right. Failure separates those who think they want success from those who are determined to win. Failure narrows the playing field. The first people out are those that blame others, next out are those who lost interest. The weak go first. The strong learn to hang in there and keep bouncing back until they win.

Sometimes failure is telling us we are going in the wrong direction. Here’s the dilemma. If we give up, is it because we were going in the wrong direction or because we gave up? The only way to tell is to abandon the project or put it to rest for a time. Very often, this is forced on us because we are out of money or resources. When the mind is free of pressures, realistic planning emerges. This lull was not wasted, it had great benefit, it is the art of redirection. When you try again, chances are you will get it right. New outlook’s is the result of bouncing back from failure.

The Desire to Fail

For some reason, man has a natural desire to fail. This desire is difficult to identify because it is fulfilled in subtle ways. For example: People will max-out credit cards on trivia, creating debts that makes it impossible to fulfill their deepest dreams. They gamble when they know the odds are against them.

A habit of success requires the ability to recognize elements that destroy. The man that makes $30,000 fears risk. The man who makes $1,000,000 accepts risk. In the early stages, everyone in subtle ways fears risk and failure. Fears, whatever they are, must be faced up too and dealt with. Fantasizing can help accomplish this by creating a burning desire that is more powerful than fear.

Leaders, who demand control over others, are teaching them to fail and ultimately themselves. It is easy to control people who accept the belief that they are failures. In this situation, the motivation tool is reward and punishment. The intent may be to motivate people to cooperate, but very often the results remind people they are failures and many accept this as fact. Disciplinary action means internal motivation has not worked and external motivation is reverted to. In business, the long-term results could be deadly. Self-fulfilling prophecy takes over.

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Self-Education

Learning without Instructors

It is possible for man to educate himself without help or support from others. In fact, when we learn the art of self-education (learning how to learn versus how to be taught) we will find, if not create, opportunity to find success beyond our wildest dreams. Self-educated people are not dependent on others for knowledge. If they need a specialized skill, they know how to acquire it without dependence on authority. Unknowingly, people are promoted by their ability to learn new skills fast. Bosses may not recognize how people learn, but they do recognize the results. People, who know how to educate themselves have choices, they have the ability to advance in any endeavor.

There are many ways to acquire a skill that has value to someone else. Everyone is unique and this uniqueness has value, but only the individual can explore and discover what that uniqueness is. People who do not depend on authority for guidance can start now. People, who want someone to show them the way, may never get started. Dependency on self to develop skills is a powerful skill in itself. This is the tool of super achievers.

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"All men who have turned out worth anything has had the chief hand in their own education." -- Sir Walter Scott

Dependency on self to develop skills is a powerful skill in itself. This is the tool of super achievers.

Some History on Self-education

Before 1960, self-education was a highly desirable and acceptable form of education. When the astronauts were chosen, the first requirement was a college education. This eliminated the man who made space flight possible, Chuck Yeager. His formal education was limited to high school. From that time on, society no longer recognized self-educated people. Forty years later, it is becoming a lost art.

Man has always been able to educate himself without instructors. In third world countries, there are limited education opportunities — self-education is the only way to acquire skills. Up until about 1960, a job applicant with self-education skills was desirable. Chuck Yeager was the first man to fly faster than sound, yet his formal education was limited to high school. His skills helped us learn how to put man in space. When the first astronauts were chosen, Chuck Yeager, the man who showed us how, was disqualified because he did not have a college education. From this time on, self-educated people were not recognized on employment application forms. In the last 40 years, self-education has gone underground. It is still active, but is not recognized by society.

The Panama Canal

The Panama Canal Commission has always adapted advancing technology as soon as it was available. This may be tradition from the construction days. Because of the demand for skilled employees in advancing technology and lack of formal training opportunity, the Commission has to rely on the self-educated. This was especially true during the construction days when most of the workers came from Jamaica with almost no formal education.

Mr. John F. Stevens, the chief engineer, did not have a grade school education. He understood self-education concepts and implemented a leadership style that took full advantage of man's ability to educate himself. There is a saying:

"If employers treat their employees like engineers, they will think and act like engineers. If they treat them like helpers, they will think and act as helpers."

The Panama Canal Commission treats blue-collar craftsmen like engineers. As a result, they make decisions equal to that of college-educated engineers in the United States. In most parts of the US, blue-collar craftsmen are treated as helpers.

My experience

In 1980, the Panama Canal Commission installed timesharing computers in all offices. (Timesharing was a typewriter controlled by a computer at a central location. There was no monitor, input and output was typed on rolled paper.). I was working as a machinist when assigned to the office to operate the computer. My only experience was reading about them.

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My assignment was to write programs that would be useful in the office. There was no instructor available; the only source of help was a small manual that came with the computer. There was no software, so the first assignment was to learn BASIC computer language, then design programs that would be useful in the office. A year later, IBM-PCs were installed. The same policy, no outside help and write your own software. It really wasn't policy, there was no one available to help and there was no useful software on the market that met our needs. I retired 8 years later as supervisor of the computer department.

I had a similar experience in 1954 when I was 19 years old, in the Marine Corps, during the Korean War. I was sent to Japan. First day off the troop ship, an officer told me, "you are a machinist. You are also in charge of the machine shop." Using a small manual, I taught myself to be a machinist, which became my primary occupation.

During extended combat, there is no time for years of training. Teenagers are able to learn skills in weeks, if not days, when under combat pressure. They are learning with hands-on in real word environments. It takes years to learn the same skills in classrooms.

My ability to educate myself is the secret that open the doors of opportunity. Number of years in the classroom may determine the ease of getting a job, but self-education skill determines the ability to advance.

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Starting with no money and no experience I was at the right place and right time seemly hundreds of times. At the time I considered these contacts to be by chance. Looking back I realized there was a systematic pattern taking place that allowed me to acquire needed skills and resources to move the dream forward. Chance or luck does not produce results like this. There was another force at work supporting my dream, universal intelligence. It was working in the background setting up timing and opportunity, it became my decision to act. Decisions based on feeling that this is the right thing to do without having all the facts or knowing the outcome.

We connect to universal intelligence when searching for answers not found in recorded knowledge. It is similar to searching the internet. There’s tons of information, good and bad, right and wrong, which leaves it up to us to make a decision. Universal intelligence is no different, except the display. The internet is displayed on a screen, universal intelligence is displayed in our thought process. The thought process stimulates our comfort zone to take action or ignore it. It becomes active through the development of personal dreams, goals, and the search for creativity. People who have no goals, who have accepted the status quo, have limited connections to universal intelligence.

Universal intelligence compared to the internet and social networking.

There is an unlimited supply of knowledge that we can tap into, but the receiver must determine if discovered information is useful or not.

It does not know good information from bad, or right from wrong. Skills and experience of receiver determine that.

It will offer suggestions where facts are mission. It will make contacts. Skills and experience will determine their value. It will learn what you are trying to do and refine results to fit your needs.

We are awed by super achievers and wonder how they achieved against all odds. The following examples have two elements in common; they had a mission statement/goal, written or understood, that united their decisions. In some cases the mission statement was one word “SURVIVAL.” They were guided by universal intelligence, knowingly or unknowingly. They made the right decision, because they felt it was the right thing to do.

How Universal Intelligence Creates Opportunity Beyond Our Wildest Dreams

In the section titled “How Goals Find Results,” I have a short paragraph on “Intuitive Forces.” This mystery force has many names including gut feelings, and is little understood. In this section I use the term “Universal Intelligence.” By accepting the below theory you can plan your goals that are in harmony with the forces of nature. Nature has laws and working with the laws of nature we can achieve goals with less problems. With hindsight I developed the following theory based on my many failures and few successes.

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Over 200 years ago the crew of the HMS Bounty munity and took control of the ship. They set adrift, in an open boat, Captain William Bligh and his supporters. Without charts or navigation interments, they sailed the boat 3,600 miles to the Dutch colony, Timor, near Java. Survival was the goal that united the crew.

In 1914, 27 men joined Ernest Shackleton on an Antarctica expedition. The failed mission was transformed into the greatest survival drama in the age of Polar exploration when their ship was crushed in an ice flow. Shackleton’s 800 mile voyage in a life boat and mountain climbing challenge brought help to rescue his men after two years in the Antarctica. Survival was the goal that united the crew.

1,000 years ago Polynesians populate the Pacific Ocean islands from Hawaii to New Zealand without charts or navigation interments. Their chants and dances tell how the gods guided them across the vast Pacific Ocean in their dugout canoes. Belief in God united the crew.

Today, FaceBook and Google Inc., along with many others, changed social relations and how we process information. Leaderships’ vision united the workforce. The workforce, being united with a clear mission statement, were able to develop unique ideas that change the way we communicate.

People who fulfill their dreams, knowingly or unknowingly, advance using their comfort zone. Where there is a lack of knowledge and the need to know, we base final decisions on intuitive forces. This is how we achieve any goal in life, whether it is sailing across oceans, building a business, or survival. Comfort zone navigation is how the Polynesians populated the Pacific Ocean. This is how Captain Bligh navigated 3,600 miles to the Dutch colony in Timor without charts or navigation tools. This is how my adventure lifestyle became possible. Comfort zone navigation had me at the right place at the right time to embrace opportunity.

Universal intelligence communicates with us through our comfort zone. (Gut feelings, intuitive forces) It is based on the laws of nature, the power that designed and created life on earth. It created humans as free thinkers with the ability to create with its help. It helps us in a crisis or guides us to personal achievement. When we understand nature’s laws and adapt to it we can achieve success. For example; a ships’ hull is designed to move through the water efficiently by understanding the law of physics. If the laws are ignored and the ship is built as a square box, there will be many problems trying to push it through the water. The

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same is true for universal intelligence. By understanding its laws we can achieve our goals with fewer problems.

The laws:

A clearly defined mission statement/goal that motivates. TOP PRIORITY! Visionary skills. Freedom to develop/promote ideas. Discovering what works with trial and error. Failing and bouncing back is the

filter that separates casual interest from passionate interest. Self-education skills. Must develop a passion for the mission/goal. It does not support goals based on

changing moods or interest. Skills and experience are needed to make quality decisions. It offers choices, not

decisions. We being the developer make the decision. When decisions are right the project will develop and grow. When they is wrong

it will self-destruct. Universal intelligence services:

Will offer ideas good or bad, right or wrong. Will connect you with support. Will have you at the right time and place for possible opportunity. When lacking skills or experience it will connect you to opportunity to acquire

needed skills. It will find ways to motivate you to be persistent through good times and bad.

Elements that can enhance or be a barrier:

Social pressure—positive or negative Competing ideas Risk level—willing to take risk or not Love, sex Changing environments—accept or reject Belief in our abilities and self-filling prophecy

To accept the comfort zone concept some theories must be recognized. Universal intelligence is the source for all creative ideas. Man does not produce creativity, he searches for ideas and universal intelligence supplies possibilities. We have the ability to analyze and process ideas with recorded information. It does not help people with no focused goal or personal achievement desires.

The question is soon asked, “What role does God have in this?” The answer is, “universal intelligence is one of many elements in the universe that God manages.” Worshiping God is a powerful motivating goal and the same rules apply. God helps us by guiding us to a higher quality lifestyle. The song “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” is a mission statement that is sung many times. It inspires us to apply the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Money, power, and influence are not a goals, they are a rewards only for personal achievement. Quality lifestyle is also a reward of personal achievement, it is not a goal by itself.

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