28 Jul Success Comes from Understanding Your Past
Every now and then I get the urge to grab my video camera and record a few words from the heart. In today’s video I’m going to share with you how important it is for you to look at your past and deal with crowded issues that may tangle you and be holding you back. No matter how ‘good’ a life you’ve lead your future depends more on your past than you can imagine…. more so, what you *think* of your past.
Yes, it’s not so much what happened in your past but how you THINK about it that makes the biggest difference. So I wonder… if you were to sit quietly for a few hours and take stocktake of your life thus far – every aspect of it – how would you feel about some of those things that appeared in your personal inventory list.
If I were to be honest, there would be some things that challenge me. However, knowing the principles I’ll be sharing with you in this video I’ve had the opportunity do accept and embrace both the positive AND the negative aspects of the life I’ve lead thus far.
Keeping in mind this one thing – it’s not a competition! You don’t need to ‘justify’ your good deeds and more than you need to justify your misdeeds, no matter if it was you or another who did them.
Enjoy today’s video. It could start you on a new path to new heights of achievement!
Transcript: Good morning, good afternoon, or maybe I should even say good evening. Whatever time it is, wherever you are in the world right now, hello and welcome. My name is Paul Barrs. Thank you so much for taking the time to come and join with me with this YouTube update.
At the moment I’m again just down at one of the local parks in the beautiful area on the sunshine coast of Queensland where I live. I’m in this row of trees. I’ve just spent a bit of time sitting here thinking about how magnificent these trees are and how long it’s taken them to grow. Here we have this shining example I guess, if we call it a successful tree. Wouldn’t you agree? Look at it. It’s gorgeous.
The thing about success is this. Most people, when they look for success, to achieve success, they look towards the future. Would you agree with me on that? We want to achieve more than what we’ve achieved so far. I believe that in order to truly plan our future wisely we must both understand and appreciate our past to get the most from it.
Look behind me. Did this thing grow up overnight? No. It’s taken 120 years of solid foundation, of solid growth, of watering. The idea, the seed, planting it, the very beginning of nurturing and care; it’s past has made it what it is now.
There’s a lesson to be learned there. You are today the same as you will be tomorrow except for, I believe, the books that you read and the people that you meet. You are today the sum total of every decision you’ve made so far in your life, of every action you’ve taken so far in your life, you are today. That means if you don’t like what you are today, if you’re not happy with what you are today, who you are today, there is – let me say this clearly – nobody else that you can blame except you.
That’s not to say that others didn’t influence the decisions you made, but they were your decisions. They were your actions. Things happened that were out of your control but then you decided to either do or not do whatever you did or didn’t do afterwards. That’s what I’m saying.
When it comes to success, I believe that our greatest friend is also our greatest enemy, our ‘frienemy.’ That is us. We should be no more careful of any person than we are of ourselves. Be careful. You will sabotage your success more than the person next door. This tree’s success was not determined by that tree over there. It had to grow up on its own. Yes, they might share some of the same root space, but it had to do it alone and accept the challenges in life as they came. And of course, now we have this amazing canopy overhead.
I’m in a local park. I’m in suburbia. There are houses just over there. You can probably hear the cars passing by just over there, and we have this amazing shelter. With a good foundation, with a solid plan of growth for the future founded on that foundation, you, too, can become a wonderful haven for not just friends, not just family, but literally for tens, thousands, and yes, even millions of people if you grow well.
Listen again to what I said earlier. In order to plan wisely, you must both appreciate and understand your past. What does that mean? It means that, number one, you accept the things that have happened whether you could or could not do anything about them. Number two, you accept your decisions to either act or not act upon those things. Number three, you accept the decisions and the processes and the things that you’ve done and thought since. Basically, you take responsibility but you accept them. You apply neither hate nor love to them, just accept them. These are things that happened.
I have things in my past that I wish I could clear from my memory. Things I have seen, things that friends or family have been a part of, things that I have done myself. We all have things that we wish were not there. My choices are simple. Do I go back and do them again or do I learn from them and go forward? No. I accept and I understand my past so that I might plan my future well.
Because my future, I want it to be like this tree. I want it to be standing there for years, even after I’ve gone. Look at this video that I’m recording right now. It’s online. It’s been entered into the ether, the www – the wild, wild west, the worldwide web – and it will continue, continue, continue for time and time, for years into the future. This is, I believe, part of the legacy that I’m beginning to leave.
I hope in the years to come that these videos will grow and I can share them with others. Does that make sense? I hope so, because I’d like you to think just a little bit outside of the box, beyond yourself, and look at your goals. Look at your future. And just don’t make it about you. Make it about not just those around you. Make it about those you can’t even see, who you will never meet but who just might hear from you, or hear about you.
Does that make sense? Dream big, but before you do that, you must look at your past. You must understand it. You must appreciate it. While we may have not liked everything that happened, you can learn from it. That’s the key.
Take that thought away with you this time. I’ll talk to you again soon. My name is Paul Barrs from PaulBarrs.com. I teach online Internet business. This is my personal business success channel, but I teach people how to build and run Internet businesses. I believe that anybody can learn how to work for themselves and be independent of the world financial system, and get out there and be in control.
If that’s something you’d like to learn, stop by at PaulBarrs.com. I’d love to see you there. You take care now. Bye-bye.
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I’d love to get your feedback below… what Success Lessons have you learnt over the years?
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