Tag Archives: Persistence

It’s all in the mind

The last few weeks I did some effort to look at the view here, in the morning, when opening the curtains of the bedroom. And the feeling is so different from when I, when we first arrived here. And the view didn’t really change, so I must have changed. But somehow I still blame external circumstances for what happened. And I’m not happy with the word ‘blame’ as it sounds so negative.

Stunning view, who wouldn’t be happy with this?

And I try so hard to stay positive, to be grateful what is there, what I have. And there is a lot, yes, compared to other people. But deep inside I feel there is something wrong and that I can’t help it, can’t help it all. And I worked so hard, tried to force so many things to make it better, to get what I want, to feel better, to be able to share better. But until today it didn’t really work, although I keep telling myself every now and then that I’m still here, something I wanted, something I somehow believe is what is supposed to be.

But the price is high and I also don’t know where else to go. And all the things I read are so easy to read. It’s so easy to advise other people what to do, so easy to know what to do in certain situations. And the last few days, weeks I’m starting to realize more and more that I just lack the desire, that I somehow lost hope that things will ever be OK again.

And yes, somehow my biggest fears became reality, like looking at some of my friends, my acquaintances who had no money and I was wondering how they survived. So now I know, at least right now for myself, how it feels if you don’t have any outlook, especially financially. And it’s killing me. I feel completely locked up, like nowhere to go.

And when I was younger I had more hope, more energy, more something like ‘if I keep on fighting it will be better’. But it didn’t, my fighting didn’t pay off, at least not enough (for me, for my feelings). And in my experience I tried everything, everything, I kept on moving. But in the end I gave up, even though some things have improving and some parts, important parts, maybe the most important part of my life, is clearing up.

And it’s weird, as of course I have much more experience in all kinds of things, in many areas of life and that’s kind of fun. So I have much more knowledge, basically know how to do things. But, as Napoleon Hill states, success is about applied knowledge, knowledge in itself has no value. And yes, agree, he also states everything starts with desire, and that’s exactly the thing that’s missing, so nothing is really happening.

And yes, somehow the whole Principles of Success thing starts to add up, starts to make sense, as you kind of need all those things to be successful. And some are still lacking, some came and some went away. Like my desire was bigger, very big, about a year ago, or maybe even one and a half year ago now. But it went away, being killed by all kinds of events I felt I had no control over. So what left were persistence and patience, where persistence in my case probably often ends up in being stubborn.

One major thing, one major question still stands for me and that is how to control my thoughts, as I still didn’t manage that or at least didn’t manage that in a sufficient way. And I see now that I came back to the title I gave this post: “It’s all in the mind.”, so how to control the mind?

So what can I give you except my thoughts in this post? Something like a page ‘how to control your thoughts’? Or just let it be for now? Just hope that my writings, that I guess many people would consider ‘negative’, are still interesting, still add something of value to some people, to you maybe?

Looking forward to your comments, your thoughts, as that would give me direction where to go with this project, with Inspiration for Success. And yes, that would inspire me, as maybe people can only give inspiration if they are given inspiration.

Blogger and alone?

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Confused and disappointed

I am confused and somehow disappointed, but am also gathering some new strength and courage. And one of the reasons that I am confused and disappointed it that I feel completely abandoned by my team (or Master Mind). It seems that no matter what I do or not do, they are not really moving. Yes, the weekly meetings at first they joined and went OK as you may read in earlier posts and pages, but slowly I feel like I kind of lost them. And I still can’t fully figure out why.

And I am disappointed with more people and organizations and all kinds of things. As somehow they don’t seem to respond or don’t want to respond or can’t respond. And I know I’m not perfect and I know I don’t respond to every e-mail and such, but at least I try and I think I manage like 80% or so.

And that’s where things don’t add up. As they say that you reap what you sow, and I thought I was sowing good things, like responding to e-mails as good and as quick as I can. And it seems I reap nothing but an awful lot of spam and hardly any serious replies. Although that’s not fully true, as recently I got some very nice e-mails from people from a long time ago who were checking on me related to the typhoon here.

Same with ‘first give’, start with ‘giving’. And I have the feeling especially the last few years, even the last ten years I have been giving a lot, even more than I feel I had, even more, much more than I could afford, emotionally as well as financially. And also here it seems nothing is coming back as I feel emotionally completely empty and am kind of completely bankrupt financially.

So some things don’t add up and I still can’t fully figure out why, as somehow I do believe in the reaping and sowing thing and the ‘giving’ first thing.

But what if you’re completely empty, if everything seems to be gone, if you have nothing left, if you feel abandoned by everybody?

Still my goals

And of course time will tell and somehow I still have my goals set and somehow I feel I will get there. But it hurts e.g. that I am in debt now, something I could have never imagined as I used to be the most honest person in the world, the most saving person in the world, the most thrifty person in the world. And now I’m in debt where interest payments are adding up and where somehow somewhere I have to face people. And yes, I do want to pay them back, I don’t want this and I know it’s ‘bad’, but looking back I wouldn’t know what I could have done differently. But the frustrating part is that even if I would have some income, and recently I got some, it would take me probably ten years or so to get out of debt, to pay all my debts. And it doesn’t feel fair, as I feel abused by many people who didn’t pay me back, who postponed payments or just didn’t pay. Even people I trusted a lot. But yes, now I am one of those people, not paying their dues.

Debts

And yes, the good thing is I now know that you don’t necessarily need to be dumb or a big spender or someone who intentionally lives beyond their means, even though the last would apply to me. But related to living beyond your means, if you feel like you have an earning capacity of say like a minimum of USD 1,000.00 or so a month, which I consider I have, even a lot more, and you basically didn’t earn anything for years? And yes, I have been too easy with my partner related to money, but still, if nothing, really nothing is coming in, at least not after all expenses have been paid, after all staff salaries have been paid, then it all doesn’t add up anymore.

And made my mistakes and had my share in not running the business properly. But still, customers that unsatisfied that they just refuse to pay, even after you have made a deal how to continue with a project? A customer who doesn’t pay after an initial mistake that you have worked for half a year now to solve in a different way and thought you had a good solution, a good deal and the customer is still not satisfied, still doesn’t want to pay? And especially the last one hurts as this was a trial for me to do ‘anything’ without complaining, the last often people say I do, and just doing whatever needed to be solved, providing solutions, solving little problems, building alternate solutions. And still, no ‘acceptance’, only ‘thank you’.

So where to go

So where do I want to go with this post. Well, for quite a while I have something in my head that I should write a bit more about all those self help sites, all those self help ideas and what it means, what they mean. And one of the things is that they are addictive to a person like me and apparently to many more people. And also all those e-mails I get, you get, after ‘signing up’, which at the moment is mostly some kind of force sign up as most people just fill in the form that pops up that asks for your e-mail address and appears to block the content of the site (which mostly it doesn’t).

And yes, all those e-mails are written very well, as they urge you to click on the link to either visit the blog, the site or to buy something. And after getting some of those e-mails from more than half a year now I notice they are all the same. They are written in a way so I will go to the site and finally buy something.

And nothing wrong with that, don’t get me wrong. As I am in a similar situation as those people, doing work, useful work I think by writing this blog, this site, and I would like to be paid for it, yes, deserve to be paid for it. But until now I decided NOT to follow those common sales tactics as I don’t want to force people to go to my blog, this site and I don’t want to force them to pay me. I want people to like what I read and then have them decide for themselves to give something to me. And yes, ‘everybody’ says that cannot be done. ‘All blogs’ earn from advertisements or selling books or e-books or affiliate links.

But still, is my ideas so weird? Why wouldn’t you want to pay me, give something back for the effort I have put in this site? Of course only if you like what I’m doing of if you got something useful from me. Or maybe just because you like me.

And yes, I know I need to do something more ‘active’. I know I need to do something to make it more easy for you to go to the site, read the stuff that’s here, like an e-mail with a link to ‘today’s post’ or something. And I will, soon. But I was hoping other people, my team would be part of it, do part of the work. But apparently they don’t want to, for whatever reason, so I have decided for now I’ll just continue on my own, like most bloggers seem to do. And just do my own thing, contrary to have things checked by the Master Mind as Napoleon Hill suggests.

But yes, I also read that this type of situation is part of the road of success. Being kind of desperate, feeling alone, even unsure about if you are ‘right’.

But I don’t want to give up, I won’t give up. Not for me, but also because I made some commitment to myself related to inspiring people. Because this situation is exactly what it’s all about. ‘Someone’, ‘something’ inspiring me now, in this deep trench. That would be nice.

And yes, if it’s not there I’ll have to find it within myself, or within the increasing visibility of the site.

Positive

And yes, there is one positive, one that is also sure, related to continuing the work, writing continuously here, no matter what, being persistent, being disciplined, having the habit to write, write every day.

And that is that the site is coming alive. That it is becoming visible in Google. And that means that sooner or later more people will find the site, visit the site and read what I wrote. And yes, there must be some people who like what I write. Or can use it to be inspired or achieve success or maybe just feel a little better if they are down.

As the statistics show that the site is coming alive:

Inspiration for Success coming alive

Courage

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I wanted to write about a bad movie I watched tonight. About how much courage, and yes, i guess persistence it takes to have such a movie, any movie made.

But just now, just before writing this post I got a very negative “I don’t want to receive any messages anymore” from a family member. And it hurt a lot, it still hurts right now. Because yes, I just added e-mail addresses to the mailing list for my daily quote. Just to ‘get started’. And of course I know that’s not done. Of course I know that’s kind of spamming. But I thought I had to start somewhere. As I know a site like this, a project like this takes time to attract visitors, takes time for the right people to find it, takes time for people signing up for the daily quote and other things we have in mind. And I just tried to speed up the process a bit. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter what are or were my reasons to add people to the mailing list.

But what hurt me today was that the message sounded so negative. With three exclamation marks at the end. And the person sending it must know the messages come from me, from my project, as the message was in Dutch, while the site and the quotes are in English. So what hurt me was that this person has received my daily quotes for months now. And didn’t complain or asked to be unsubscribed, where at the end of the message there is a line that just indicates to reply if you don’t want the messages anymore. And if I, if we receive such a message, and we received quite some, we immediately mark the e-mail address as ‘unsubscribed’.

So yes, they often say that what a person says to you says more about the person than about you. So this person, this family member has possibly been irritated with my messages, with my behavior, with my situation for a long time or something. Or he or she has or had some issues himself or herself. Or the quote of today hit something or something like that.

But it still hurt, getting a message with such a negative tone after having sent, having received so many daily quotes and some newsletters. Especially from a family member, where I fully felt abandoned by that side of the family last year, when I didn’t know what to do or where to go anymore and considered killing myself.

So yes, I have already been deciding to leave the family behind, to let go. To let go of my mam who I tried to call every week, but who, for the last half year or year or so never called me, even after I told her a few weeks ago that I miss her calling me (not sure if someone told her about this post, but amazingly she called the day after I wrote this post). Especially as she always says her children are the most important, well, ‘things’ in her life. But it doesn’t show. And let go of my sister, who asked me to not contact her anymore, not send SMS, not call, not send e-mail, nothing. Just because I made a mistake, where the mistake was a similar one to i guess the one she made quite some time ago.

So what about the movie I saw tonight, the bad movie. And it was the move Dragon Wolf. And why was it bad? Well, it appeared to be some kind of fighting movie and I don’t like fighting movies. But my partner does, so he bought it, brought it tonight. So i decided to join watching it to create some quality time together, just sit together on the couch and watch a movie, as both of us had been doing our own things during the day and had hardly seen each other.

And just after it started it appeared to be even worse than I expected, as the actors didn’t say their lines in a natural way and the whole thing just appeared to have been written and played very ‘cheap’.

Anyhow, as I still intended to have some quality time with my partner, at least be together after having been separate for most of the day, I decided to continue watching it, even after my partner already indicated that he (also) didn’t like the movie and even considered watching something else.

But while watching this bad movie, bad script, bad acting, cheap production, etc., etc. I started to realize that any movie, even this ‘bad’ movie, has been made using the Principles of Success as described by Napoleon Hill. And that any movie, including this movie, can be considered a success just because it has been made and published. You see, I realized that also this movie started with a thought, a thought from someone who wanted to make this movie. And somehow he or she managed to create a team to make this movie, write the script, organize the making of it, creating all the stuff that is needed to make a movie, hired the actors, found a budget to produce it, etc., etc. So with knowing what i know now there must have been quite some patience, persistence, heart breaks, defeat, etc., etc. involved in the making of this movie. And it was made and produced and published.

So yes, slowly I started to realize that no matter how ‘bad’ I considered this movie to be, at least the making of it, the publishing of it could be considered as a major success. And while writing this it may even be more difficult to make a bad movie with unknown actors and inexperienced directors and production staff than it is to make a nice Hollywood type movie on a large budget with all the people and resources that would be available for such a thing.

Back to the Future I And i also realized, not only today, but for quite some time already, that e.g. the first movies of Steven Spielberg were not that good, at least not to current standards. As I happen to like the Back to the Future trilogy and looking at them now those actors are not that good. Or the whole thing was also made on a budget that was just not enough or something. Or some key people, maybe even Steven Spielberg himself, were not that experienced yet.

So yes, while watching this movie I at least admired the courage and everything else this person, or Master Mind group, had been able to achieve.

And the story I guess was not that bad after all, even though I still don’t fully understand it.

So yes, let’s applaud for all those people having the courage to do something, make something happen, even though the result is not that perfect. At least they tried and made it. And you and I sometimes don’t.

Enough is enough

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Well, enough is enough, at least for today.

And no, I didn’t finish what i wanted to finish, but somehow Infinite Intelligence didn’t seem to want me to finish it.

So enough is enough.

Comparison

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Jealous

I notice more and more that I am jealous on many people, especially famous and rich people, and recently even something like on anybody who has a job or some kind of (decent) income. And as I often read to not compare yourself with others and as jealousy is considered a negative emotion I am thinking about those things a lot.

And one of the things I was thinking is how happy those rich and/or famous people actually are. And how often they are happy or considered successful. And indeed, if I would want to change with them.

But most I am thinking about especially actors that my image of them is certainly not true and that there are probably only a few actors who are really successful most of their lives. And people may be successful or happy with their (acting) job or with their business success, but often I also read about their problems in relationship and/or problems with their children and such.

And being really famous probably means you need security 24/7, even if you don’t have a job. And of course actors jobs are temporary, as movies are relatively short term projects and TV series mostly don’t last for more than a few years or seasons.

So I was thinking to make this more real and make a list of people who I consider are successful and/;or people I’m jealous with. And then maybe do some research and try to figure out if they are really more happy than I am.

And I was just shocked finding some, probably based on research, figure that you can only influence happiness for only 40% yourself and that the remaining 60% is defined by character or circumstances. Something to look into I guess, because I thought happiness (and success) was just a choice, relatively independent on character or circumstances.

Famous and rich people

So let’s make the list of famous and rich people I am jealous of. For now in random order, with some comment if I know some more about them:

Leonardo DiCaprio: very famous actor, famous since relatively young age. Probably very rich. Considered a very good and successful actor. Seems to have problems in relationships.
Donald Trump: very rich and somehow famous public personality. Came from a rich family and continued his fathers business as far as I know. Has problems with relationships and has been bankrupt at least once.
Andrew Carnegie: very rich ‘sample’ of Napoleon Hill. Don’t really know something about him, especially that he was one of the tycoons when ‘America was built’.
Oprah Winfrey: very rich and famous TV personality. What is she doing different from me (and you?). Fully don’t understand why she is where she is. Her personality?
Justin Bieber: very famous singer at very young age. As far as I know he started singing, performing at very young age. I presume and as far as I know his mother ‘pushed’ (or helped?) him to get where he is now at very young age. Seems to have quite some personal problems, e.g. with girls/relationships.
Matt Damon: famous actor. As far as I know he had his struggles to become a famous actor, but as far as I know he realized his being famous at relatively young age.
Rick Harrison (Pawn Stars): seems to be quite rich from his business (that his father seems to have started) and now famous through his TV performance in Pawn Stars on History. Interesting story in Wikipedia though about Rick Harrison trying for four(!) years to get his shop in a TV show. So some dreaming and persistence involved. Or maybe even a lot. Divorced twice according to Wikipedia, so not so lucky in relationship/marriage it seems.
John Travolta: famous actor. Is older than I thought. Seems to have had quite some ups and downs in his movie career. Main issue in his life I guess is the loss of his son, where as far as I know the loss of a child is the worst thing that can happen to a human being. He also lost his first wife and seems to have (had) some marriage problems with his second wife. He owns several planes so must be quite rich.
Bill Gates: the face of Microsoft and is one of the richest people on earth. As far as I know he is more of a visionary than a business man and I feel some connection with him in also being a bit a visionary and (maybe?) technical. Still wondering how he made it so far and I didn’t even really take off. The right time, the right place and the right people? There must be more thinking of the Principles of Success. Also older than I thought.
Steve Jobs: for me especially important as he seems to thrive on being charismatic. Had his ups and downs, but as far as I know financially never as bad as I have and had. Had his ups and downs business wise though which must have hurt him badly. Struggled with cancer and finally died from it. Was older than I thought, but died relatively young.
Al Pacino: don’t know much about him. Always think his name is fake, but I’m not sure.
Jon Voight: always liked him, but weird to me that he is not so handsome. But why would an actor be? Quite some serious family problems, so happy?
Steve Buscemi: the ugliest actor I ever saw in movies. And I guess the actor I admire most, as he turned his looks into an asset playing roles that really fit his looks. I guess I takes courage to do something like that and I cannot imagine it must have been easy for him. And weird, until just now I didn’t even know his name. Bravo!

Other actors, not so impressive to me, but worth mentioning:

Tom Hanks.

Some conclusions

As indicated in the introduction I have been thinking a lot about rich and famous people recently. And I still can’t figure out why they ‘made it’ and I didn’t. I can’t imagine they’re that much better than I am or you are. They can’t be all those people who work 24/7, work hard, are persistent beyond all means, etc., etc. So what is it? Is it attitude? Is it still something like Law of Attraction? Is it indeed this ‘break’, this opportunity they saw or had? Is it this person they met? Is it the location they were? Do they have a different personality? Or is it still something like luck?

I’m still not fully sure what it is, but I’m sure they’re all not that different from you and me. So maybe persistence is still the biggest thing and I’m going to find out. With this site, this project I’m more and more determined to figure out how all those people I consider famous and successful and I’m not are where they are now. And how they stay there.

And yes, another thing I found out and see more and more. There are an awful lot of famous and rich people around. Not like ten or twenty, but hundreds or thousands or even ten thousands. And rich people there are even more. So there is room out there and it is possible to get there, also for you and me.