If you spend any amount of time looking at the lives of successful people, one of the common threads you will find is that they tend to be members of successful organizations.
Now sometimes folks find themselves joining an organization that had just the right environment and they become successful. Other times people who already are leaders create an organization that propels them to further success. It doesn’t matter whether you are an athlete with the desire to successfully compete on the Olympic level, or you are looking to become more successful in business. Partnering with the right organization can make the difference between bringing out your best and leaving you in the middle of the masses of mediocrity.
If this is true, it begs a question.
What should you look for in an organization to see if it is one that could help you on your journey toward success?
The Gift
Fortunately for us Shad Helmstetter has taken a long hard look at that very question. He spent years researching and came up with 12 personal growth tools that can propel us to success. In his book, “The Gift” he shows us what each of these 12 tools look like and how we might see them in action within an organization.
Here are the 12 tools that Shad says we should look for in an organization that will help us become more successful. Shad feels that these areas area so valuable to our success that when we find an organization that fosters each of them we should consider it a Gift to be able to join it.
- Surrounding Yourself with Success – Shad says we’ll only go as far as the people who take us there. The way the brain works, we become most what we surround ourselves with the most. If we are going to maximize our success then somehow we have to bathe our minds in the right kind of thinking that will lead to that success. One of the easiest ways to get that continuous “successful thinking” exposure is to surround ourselves in an organization that already has that environment.
- Choice – There are two basic kinds of choices we make: big choices and important choices. Most of us get confused on this issue and think that the big choices are the important choices. But when it comes to our success this is simply not true. Most folks believe their success is determined by the big choices they make such as where to live, who to marry, or what career to go into. However Shad points out that our success is much more influenced by the hundreds of seemingly insignificant choices we make all day long. Over the long haul our success is much more greatly influenced by such mundane choices as who we spend the most time with, what foods we choose to eat, what books we read, how much we exercise, which phone calls we return, what time we get up in the morning, whether we choose to give free advise, how we use our credit cards, whether we choose to complain, and on, and on.
- Helping Other People Grow – Shad points out that it is a universal law of success that when you help improve the lives of others, your own life will get better. If you want to succeed, help other people grow. You find an organization that values this principle, join it right away! Because it will be a place where you will truly feel the rewards in your heart – the kind that money can’t buy.
- Believing in Yourself – Self belief is the cornerstone of the confidence that will allows us to move forward, take action, and achieve success. Shad claims that next to faith, self belief is the greatest personal strength you can have. An organization that teaches this principle goes a long way toward making its members successful.
- Changing Your “Self-Talk” – Self talk is the myriad of little things we say to ourselves thousands of times throughout each day. It forms the mental programs by which we operate and how we respond to any given situation. Are you struggling with an area of your life? One of the key things you can do is change your self talk in that area. An organization that helps people here will literally be programming their members for success.
- Exceptional Attitude – More than anything else, it is your attitude that is choosing how your day is working. Are you grumpy? It will reflect on everything and everyone around you. Are you happy? Same thing. We can encounter the exact circumstances on different days with different attitudes and see completely different results. Your own attitude controls virtually everything about you. An organization that fosters good attitudes will be making it hard for their members to do anything but succeed.
- Finding Your “Focus” – I’ve talked about focus before. Shad points out that a lot of really bright people don’t know what they want. Even though most people know you’ve got to know where you are going if you are ever going to get there they still haven’t taken the time to work out what it is they want. As a result they work harder but less efficiently and end up wasting huge amounts of time and energy trying to accomplish the wrong things. An organization that helps its members find their focus will be unstoppable.
- Setting Great Goals – This goes hand in glove with the previous point. And Shad believes that the most important goals are not the big goals long range we set, but rather the smaller short term ones. Why is this? Well you will be much more likely to get to the long term goals if you hit all the smaller short term goals along the way. It does us no good at all to constantly be thinking about the big picture and never do the things that need to get done today to get us there. Organizations that help their members here will accomplish big things in the end.
- Taking Control of Your Time and Your Life – The key here Shad says is that if you want to get control of your life you have to get control of your day. Our lives are nothing more than a long series of days stitched together. The question we should all be asking is, “Am I in control of my day, or is my day in control of me?” Are we in the position that the things we do are conscious choices because they’re what we want to do instead of simply reacting to things as they come up? As we get to that point we will see much greater success in our lives. Imagine an organization that values this principle and teaches it to its members!
- Putting Yourself Into Action – I heard a wise man say one time, “Without action there is no miracle.” Think about it. Even when God himself performs a miracle, some action is taking place. All the theory in the world is only so much empty hype unless it is put into action. And when people get into action amazing things can (and do) happen. We need to be a part of organizations that propel us into action every day.
- Never Giving Up – Toward the end of his career, after World War II had long been won, Winston Churchill gave perhaps the best speech of his life. Here is the complete text: “Never, never, give up. Never give up. Never
quit. In the face of duty, honor, and country, we can never, never
quit.” Then he sat back down after talking for less than a minute. An organization that fosters that kind of determination will be unstoppable. - Doing Something You Love – Ultimately this is the tool that will allow our passion to fuel us into sustained action and success. When we are doing something we love we will exert tremendous effort and it won’t feel much like we’re working at all. We’ll get to the point where we almost fell guilty for getting paid for what we do. An organization that does that for its members is a beautiful thing indeed.
Shad explains that by mastering these 12 areas we can achieve tremendous success in our lives. It stands to reason. Look for organizations that foster these areas. And if you can’t find on that fits, then make it your mission to create one.
If you do, there will be nothing that can keep you from the success you desire.
