Are you your own worst obstacle?

Joachim De Posada

By Joachim De Posada

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Are you your own worst obstacle?

 

Most people are not too smart. That is unfortunate of course. Why can’t most people understand that what they do is what gets the results they have. It is not what they say that makes them successful, it is what they do, how they behave, the results they get.

You hear people talk and you listen to the same thing over and over. “I want to be successful, I would like to be happy, I want to have good health, be financially secure, have a marvelous wife and great kids and then you watch what they do and it is impossible for them to get what they want.

In other words, they practically sabotage their success on a daily basis.

I have good friends and acquaintances that are screwing up their lives by making stupid decisions and doing dumb things every single day of their lives.

Let me give you an example. I have a friend who is great at remodeling houses.

He was down on his luck, lost his job in the government, broke off a long term relationship and things were not going well for him.

I needed some work to be done in my home so I hired him to do so. It was a small job, not more than four or five thousand dollars. I also referred him to another friend of mine who manages buildings and who could give him a lot of work if he thought he did a good job.

This guy starts work on my home on a Monday, works for three days and on Thursday disappears until next Monday. He didn’t call or anything, he simply left and on Monday when he comes back, he tells me that he had to leave town for a few days but that he was back.

He also started work on one of the buildings that my friend manages and left without having finished.

I got very upset when he came back on Monday. I asked him why in the world didn’t he call me and let me know. Why didn’t he say anything?

I said that of all people, it was very stupid to screw up with me because I am the one that gave him a job and also referred him to someone who could give him lots of work.

He has now lost a client, me and another client, my friend who could have given him work for one, two or even more years.

This guy does good work. He is top notch in carpentry, plumbing, roof replacement, you name it, and he can do it very well and at a very good price. But, he has an Achilles tendon and that is that he is not reliable. He doesn’t keep his promises.

At least three more times he did the same thing. He simply wouldn’t show up for a day or two and then show up. So, he lost my trust and he also lost my other friend’s trust, the guy that manages buildings.

So now we have to ask why is a good worker, smart, with knowledge and skills,  be doing so poorly?

And we have to answer that he is stupid. Or that his behavior is stupid. He is not successful because he gets in his own way. He is his worst enemy, his worst obstacle.

I often say in my seminars that knowledge is power. Then I correct myself and say, no, we should say “applied knowledge is power.” Because if you know and you don’t do, you don’t know.

This friend of mine knows, he knows quite a bit but he simply doesn’t do. He doesn’t act on is knowledge in order to do a good job.

What you know makes little or no difference in your life. What you do with what you know makes all the difference in the world.

Analyze your own life. Look at how many opportunities you might be missing because of your fault, because of something you didn’t do, because you committed to doing something and you didn’t follow through. It could be something as simple as not returning a phone call or telling someone that you were going to call and you didn’t.

I have been guilty of this myself in the past. Don’t think that because I am writing about it I am perfect or it has never happened to me.

I lost one of the biggest opportunities in my life because I didn’t do what I said I was going to do, I didn’t follow up.

Mark Victor Hansen, the co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul attending a banquet with me in Dallas, asked me to submit my story so as to be included in the first Chicken Soup book. I said I would send him the story. The following Monday, I went off  to Argentina for a speech and I simply forgot. I never sent him the story. The rest is history! Chicken Soup for the Soul books have been mega best sellers and I didn’t make it for the first book, all my fault.

Everyone that got their story in that first book became very successful because millions of people read about them.

So, before you blame the economy, or the government or your boss, company or neighbor for you not doing as well as you should, take a look at yourself and how you are handling your life and your business. There you might have the answer.

 

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