I think most everyone would agree that Abraham Lincoln was most certainly a successful president. He did not reach this office easily. In fact he achieved this life dream because he refused to give up.

But refusing to give up was not the only secret to Abraham Lincoln’s success. He himself clearly defined the secret to his success. Abraham Lincoln was a man who recognized that giving is the secret to success, and his life demonstrated that indeed he was a giver. He knew that in order to receive a harvest, you first much plant the seed.

Planting the seed comes before the harvest.
There can be no harvest, unless a seed was first planted. Every farmer knows that. In fact I am sure that at some time in your life you too have planted a seed, in the ground or in a pot and watched a plant grow.

Today’s affirmation is #157 from the 210 Day Lifestyle Freedom Club that we are following in this series, reminds us of this important key to a life of positive living. (Remember: Positive living is living the life of your definition of success.

Tithing is giving 10% of your income. Tithing is like planting the seed in the ground. You have to return some seed to the ground so that your harvest can continue to come.

Remember, you can only expect a harvest AFTER you have planted a seed.

Today’s Challenge:

• Take some time to make this declaration today:

I am a Generous and Joyful tither

• Take some time to stop and ask yourself: Am I planting the seed needed to produce the harvest that I am expecting in my life?
• If you find you are not planting enough seed, make a decision (and ACT on it) to make that change in your life starting today!

Remember: giving is like planting a seed for the harvest. That is why giving is the secret to your success.

I know that you are a seed planter because:

Resource:
Every affirmation in this 210 Day Affirmation Challenge is authored by John Di Lemme, founder of the 210 Day Lifestyle Freedom Club Be sure to check out this challenge and download your free motivational mp3s and mp4 from here as well.

Photo credits:
Abraham Lincoln on Flickr
Seeds of Rice on Flickr

Your ego is defined as your sense of self esteem or self importance.

Now, here is a conflict to think about (and perhaps this has been tripping you up on your journey towards your success).

We have been taught that it is good and necessary to have a high self esteem. We have been taught that every one around you will only esteem you as highly as you esteem yourself right?

A low self esteem or self image is a negative thing, and a high self esteem or self image is a positive thing – right?

Well, yes and no.

Yes – you need to be confident of who you are (God’s creation and God does all things well) and of your abilities (given to you by God) and skills. You need these to reach you goals and dreams in life.

No – your focus should be on making a difference in the lives of others – not on what YOU need.

Herein lies a major key to your success in life and business –
which is:

Your focus! The question is: What is the dominant object of your focus?

1. Are you focused primarily on your own success and the success of your business (making money)? You are likely to fail.
2. Are you focused primarily on helping people and making a difference in their lives (first and foremost)? You are likely to succeed.

It is that simple.

So when we take a look at today’s affirmation from the 210 Day Affirmation Challenge by John Di Lemme, we not advocating you have to crush your ego, or lose your self esteem. No, the key lies in your motives for what you do.

Are you primarily focusing on pursuing what YOU want in life? This does not mean you have a high self esteem. Rather it means you have a high ego. Your focus tends towards being selfish.

Are you primarily focusing on finding ways to help others get what THEY want in life? Remember what Zig Ziglar is famous for declaring:

You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want

This is the meaning of today’s affirmation:

I am learning to lose my ego every day.

And the reason you WANT to lose your ego every day, and begin to focus more on blessings the lives of others is that this is one of the secret keys to YOUR success.

Really it is not a secret. It could be more aptly described as an overlooked key. But it is a VERY important key.

I am learning to lose my ego every day.

Here is the slide that illustrates today’s affirmation.

Today’s Challenge:

• Dare to take some time to take a real look at the driving motives of your life.
• Ask yourself, am I honestly motivated by desiring to make a difference in the lives of those around me? Or is my main motive all about me?
• My question to you: What are you prepared to do about any wrong motive you may discover in your life?

I believe in you, and I know that:

Further reading:

Why focus on others first

Put others first and you will be blessed also.

Resource:
Every affirmation in this 210 Day Affirmation Challenge is authored by John Di Lemme, founder of the 210 Day Lifestyle Freedom Club Be sure to check out this challenge and download your free motivational mp3s and mp4 from here as well.

A testimonial is defined as being a formal statement testifying to your character or qualifications. The key words in this definition are: statement and testifying.

Now, we know that people usually make statements that testify of something based upon EVIDENCE, right?

So here is a question for you: What would the evidence seen in your life testify of you?

Remember, a testimonial may be a good one (positive), or it may be not so good (negative) – it all depends on the evidence. A person will make a statement based upon the evidence that he or she sees or has seen.

The evidence that testifies of your character and qualifications would be:

• The words you speak.
• The attitudes you show.
• The actions (and reactions) you demonstrate.

These are the three things that someone who was asked to write a statement testifying of your character or qualifications would use as a basis for his or her testimonial about you.

This is because these are the three things that people around you can SEE for themselves. But I am sure that you know that these three things are actually created by hidden areas of your life. Only YOU (and God) know about these hidden areas. 

So what are these secret areas?

• Your thoughts
• Your secret attitudes (yes, your secret attitudes MAY be different from the attitudes you display to the world).
• The decisions that you are constantly making as a result of your thoughts and secret attitudes.

Now here are some sad facts:

• Too many people do not take control of their thoughts, secret attitudes and constant decisions.
• Instead they allow the influences of the world to control these hidden areas of their lives.
• The result is that their lives are controlled by the negative influences of the world. (The default influences of the world are negative).

This is the key difference between a winner and a loser.

A loser allows himself to be tossed around by the influences that surround his life.

A winner takes control of his thoughts, his secret attitudes and his daily decisions. He or she refuses to allow the negative influences that surround him to control his life.

• A winner takes an ACTIVE role in his life.
• A loser takes a PASSIVE role in his life.

A winner DELIBERATELY speaks positive words into his or her own life and the lives of those around him.

A winner recognizes that the default influence of the world is negative.

A winner makes a daily decision to live in the positive realm of life.

He or she does this by:

• Speaking positive words
• Thinking positive thoughts.
• Making positive decisions.
• Determining to maintain a positive attitude no matter what happens.

Affirmation #154 of John Di Lemme’s 210 Day Affirmation Challenge focuses on speaking words of faith.

When you SPEAK words of faith over your life, it will be easier to also THINK words of faith. 

When your thoughts and your spoken words agree, your decisions and your actions will also tend to be decisions and actions of faith. Your testimonial will be positive!

Take some time today to speak the following affirmation into your life:

I am building my Testimonial today

by speaking words of faith over my life.

Now make a deliberate and concentrated effort to make sure that today all of your words will be words of faith. If you can do this for one day, you can do it for two days – right?

Keep going, until you form a habit of speaking words of faith over your life, and notice the difference it makes!

And always remember:

Resource:
Every affirmation in this 210 Day Affirmation Challenge is authored by John Di Lemme, founder of the 210 Day Lifestyle Freedom Club Be sure to check out this challenge and download your free motivational mp3s and mp4 from here as well.

If you are not making mistakes then you are not doing anything says John Wooden. Many other highly successful men and women have been heard to say the very same thing.

Yes, making mistakes are a part of life and learning. You and I learn from doing things and getting results. In general terms:

• Positive results teach you that you probably did something right. You found a good way to get the result you wanted.
• Negative results teach you that something went wrong. You made a mistake, or what you were trying to do did not work.

Usually when make a mistake with small consequences it is easy to brush it off and learn from it right? But what about the big mistakes in life. Everyone makes those too. They are not so easy to brush off.

In fact this is where too many people get stuck. Why?

There are at least three big dangers you may face after making a wrong decision that has big consequences:

• You may feel as if you are the only one who would be capable of doing something that stupid. This happens so easily when you make a mistake that was at least in part your fault, and it caused a big problem. So you may tend to withdraw from those around you.
  
  
• You may even begin to fear making mistakes and so you find making decisions to be difficult. Warning: If you fall for this one, it will paralyze you and stop you from moving forward in life.

Elbert Hubbard is quoted as saying: The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.

• You may simply shrug it off and move on. But what did you learn? Actually this attitude tends to be one of denial.

Any one of these dangers may cause you to get stuck in your life journey.

In this series of articles we are following the 210 Day Affirmation Challenge made by John Di Lemme of Lifestyle Freedom Club. Today’s affirmation is #152 which declares:

I am Making Miracles out of my past mistakes.

Yes you CAN turn your mistakes into miracles.

Notice I said: “YOU can turn your mistakes into miracles. It won’t happen by itself. There is no “if I ignore this problem it will go away”. No, you cannot be passive about it.

If you think about the three dangers listed above, all of them are passive reactions. So let’s react actively. How? By facing them head these dangers head on and turning them around. You can do it!

You have to take action. Remember, the real danger is summed up in one word “passivity”.

How to create miracles from your mistakes:

• Stop, take some time alone to gather your thoughts.
  
  
• Face your mistakes and then forgive yourself. Yes, this is a very important step. You cannot find solutions when your mind is still in “blame” mode.
  
  
• Look for lessons learned. As you do this you will find you have taken another step towards becoming a better person. This can only have positive results for you and those around you.
  
  
• Start focusing on possible solutions.
  
  
• If your error caused you to make a wrong turn in your life, deliberately spend extra time each day focusing on your life passion (your WHY).
  
  As you do this, you will find you will see opportunities to get back onto the road that will lead you to your ultimate dreams and passion in life. It may not be the same road as you were on before, but it WILL lead you to your destination. Just stay focused!

And always remember:

Resource:
Every affirmation in this 210 Day Affirmation Challenge is authored by John Di Lemme, founder of the 210 Day Lifestyle Freedom Club Be sure to check out this challenge and download your free motivational mp3s and mp4 from here as well.

It may seem strange to find a post about closing sales. on a blog that mostly talks about positive thinking and mindset for positive living

However, it really is not that strange. Why?

Because I know that every good salesperson will tell you that closing sales has everything to do with mindset. Your mindset and the mindset of the person you are making your presentation to.

The sale you are about to make should change your clients business or life for the better.

• Your product or service should bring a positive change or benefit to your clients life or business.
• If not, then you will not have the confidence needed to close the sale.
• Knowing that you are offering something that WILL change your client’s life for the better will certainly give you the energy and motivation to close the sale.

True positive living is all about living to make a difference in the lives of others.

You start achieving that by changing your thoughts and your mindset and your positive actions will follow.

True salesmanship is all about selling to make a difference in the lives of others. This is something I did not understand as I was growing up.

My father was an excellent salesman. He even won the top prizes in his company in New Zealand.

Looking back, I know for a fact he believed in his products (chocolate – who would not believe in chocolate  

He also believed in the quality of his products. They were manufactured by one of the top companies of the world.

For some reason as I was growing up I did not ever like the idea of getting involved in sales. I would always say: Dad is the salesman, I will leave that to him.

Then life threw me one of those curves that happens to everyone. Must of my supporters went on to be Lord, and I had 2 choices:

1. Go back to New Zealand – but my work is not finished yet. Of this I am sure.
2. Set up a business to support myself. This I had no idea how to do, but was (and is) definitely the winning choice. This is the choice that will empower me to fulfill my destiny.

This is when I met up with three great men whose teachings on sales and closing is all about making a difference in the lives of others. This I could believe in! These two men are:

John Di Lemme who has some excellent teaching on closing. I have met John personally and know him to be a very real, genuine and caring person. He is also the author and founder of this 210 Day Affirmation Challenge we are studying in this series.

John is offering a FREE Video about closing. You can get it here.

Bob Berg and his Co-Author John David Mann wrote two excellent books: Go Givers and Go Givers Sell More. I follow Bob on Twitter and even get his tweets on my cell phone. He is also a very real and caring person who is always encouraging others and celebrating their successes.

These men (and many others of course) have dedicated their lives to making a difference in the lives of others.

The BIG KEY to closing (taught by these men).

• Your close begins by creating a genuine relationship with your future clients. Yes, it is all about building relationships.
• This is how you can make a difference in the lives of others.
• This is how you can close sales.

Today’s affirmation (#150), of the 210 Day Lifestyle Freedom Club is all about closing.

I am an energetic closer.

As you make this declaration today (along with the first 149 affirmations if you are following along with the challenge) – keep in mind:

My first challenge is to build relationships with the ONE true motive of adding something to the lives of others that will contribute to their living the positive life.

Today’s Challenge:

• Ask yourself: what am I doing today to contribute to the positive living lifestyle of those around me?
• If you are in sales, here is another question to ask yourself. Does my product or service make a genuinely positive difference in the lives of others? If not, why am I trying to sell it to them?

Do check out Bob Burg’s books:
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