Many of us look at people we deem successful and believe we cannot be like them.
Either we believe our circumstances are holding us down, or we believe we are not as smart as successful people are or that luck is not on our side.
Rory Vaden, co-founder of Southwest Consulting, spoke to one of the most successful people he knows, Spencer Hays, founder of Tom James fine clothing and executive chairman of The Southwestern Co. Vaden discussed that conversation in a column in the June 28, 2015, edition of The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville.
According to Vaden, Hays believes that success is simply a choice. It’s the choice to do whatever it takes – or not – to be successful.
To most of us, that’s a very simplistic answer. We all would choose success over failure. But it’s not a matter of wanting success in the abstract. It’s a matter of defining success in one’s own mind, and going out and getting it.
In other words, make up your mind to be successful and do what you need to do.
Vaden said the idea of making up one’s mind to be successful was the one thing that Hays said that struck him in his conversation.
It appears to many that making up one’s mind to be successful is very difficult. How many people do you know start something and give up without finishing it, especially when things got tough? These people wanted to be successful at the beginning, but later discovered that what they had to do to get there was not worth the effort or the sacrifice.
An idea has to travel from one’s head, to one’s heart, to one’s gut. When one finds what he wants to do, he does what he needs to do to accomplish it, no matter what happens.
Another scenario: how many people do you know who had a goal, but listened to those who told him he could never accomplish it? The naysayers believe they mean well, and some actually do. But the successful person believes more in what he wants to achieve than he does others’ opinions of him or his goal.
We can certainly find people who might tell the person who lost a job that it was his own fault. Most of us have circumstances we can’t control. Those are not important. What’s important is how we respond when those circumstances hit.
We can complain, and convince ourselves that the world is against us. Or, we can look for something that will give us the motivation we need to conquer our circumstances.
A third scenario: a person has the motivation, work ethic and has made up his mind to be successful. He just needs a vehicle to help him find success. If you are one of those, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. It’s one of many, and one of the best, such vehicles for personal success and for helping others find success.
Choosing success is not like choosing from a restaurant menu. You can’t just say you want something and someone else is going to bring it to you. Choosing success is choosing to do what you need to do, regardless of whom or what surrounds you. It’s about believing in your goal, and pursuing it above all other things – except family and friends.
It’s having faith in what you know is good, regardless of what others think. If you choose success, you’ve chosen wisely.

Peter