Every once in awhile, Clay will have us read a great book when he thinks the time is right for our business coach team to read through it. This time, Clay had us read a fantastic book called Outwitting the Devil by a man named Napoleon Hill and Sharon Lechter. Napoleon Hill wrote this “Article” right after he finished his best selling book Think and Grow Rich. His family thought it was far too strange and controversial and so they would not let him or his foundation to release the article as a book until they died. Eventually, those members of his family died off and his grandson decided it was time to publish the book. He asked Sharon Lechter, the co-author of Rich Dad Poor Dad to work on it and prepare it for the world. That book has so many knowledge bombs and I am so grateful it has had light shed on it after more than half of a century.
Drifting is the route to failure.
Hill made many great points throughout the book but one of them was the fact that drifting is the route to failure. Drifting creeps into our lives in the form of negative thoughts and pure laziness. This is often seen as procrastination and constantly putting things off until it is too late. It starts with not taking out the trash which leads to not remembering your anniversary, to forgetting to pay the bills, to forgetting date night, to forgetting to pay your taxes, to forgetting your family, and all of the sudden you look up and realize that you’re blowing out candles on your birthday cake. You look at those two candles and it hits you. There is a 6 and a 0. It’s your sixtieth birthday cake. That’s when it finally hits you. The fact that you will be dead soon. What do you do at that point? You have drifted around all of your life and have put everything off. You have not set any focus on anything and have been floating and hoping that you land on something that will let you retire. All of those hours of healthy life you spent delaying action and all of those times where you let other people decide where you spend your time are now all in the past.
This is why I live my life every day with a definite aim and a definite purpose. If I let a business coach day go by without a goal for that day that leads to a goal for my week and that to a goal for my year and that to a goal for my life, then I have wasted the most valuable and cheapest asset we have. Time. Time is something we all have an equal amount of but we all choose to spend it differently. Some choose to let it fly by, and some wish it to fly by, and others value every second and make the most out of those seconds. I always live my life with an action bias because I know that action means I am moving. Sometimes it is not always in the right direction and that is why I have to look at my road map on a daily basis. My road map leads up a mountain to my business coaching goals. To my version of success. To my definite aim.
The last great thing that Hill has taught me as a business coach is that fear is the most common tool to cause drifting which leads to failure. Whether that is fear of rejection or fear of death. Fear is used to steer us away from the action and cause laziness and casualness in our lives. If we live our lives in a sense of fear and never leave our box and learn and take risks, we will never grow, learn from our mistakes, or make any progress in life. I choose to constantly live my life without fear, with a definite aim, and with an action bias.
