YEAR TO SUCCESS

Year To Success is perhaps the most complete book on success ever written. It uses my “formula” for success: education + inspiration + action = success. Education: each week starts off with two educational articles and ends with two more educational articles. Inspiration: the third day of the week is a success biography on someone I believe is one of the most successful people in history. These success biographies are full of inspiration to help keep your flame for success burning on high. Action: each of the educational articles has one or more action steps associated with it. Taking action is what this book is all about. It is doing the action steps that bring you closer to success.

The 51 success biographies in this course were chosen based on a number of factors.

- they all have very inspiring stories
- they are/were all tremendously successful at what they set out to do
- information could be confirmed by several sources
- they are people would have touched the lives of the majority of Y2S readers in some way
- they are "heroes" of mine

I would be the first to admit, that none of these people are perfect. After all, who is? I am sure anyone can dig up dirt on any one of these people. My success biographies focus on the positive contributions the person made to the world, not their faults. Get inspiration from how they mastered principles of success, and leave the dirt behind.

The information in these 365 days comes mostly from experience and what has been proven to me to work. Much of this information is echoed by the world's leading authors in the fields of success, business, and personal achievement. These are not all new concepts, but they are all concepts that work and ones that I strongly believe in. When needed, research has been done primarily for historical data and or actual facts.

As the number of readers of Year To Success grows, I get more and more positive feedback about how the book has improved lives in some major way. I have had people tell me all about how they now see life in a new light, how they have improved relationships, and of course, how they have made more money. But what I love to hear most is when people tell me that my book is the reason they stopped smoking or abusing drugs/alcohol. To me, that is like saving a life.

This book can be read from cover to cover, or by jumping around from topic to topic, depending on what interests you most on a particular day. However, Year To Success was created as a one-year course in success with a total of 366 days (just to make sure we are covered with leap year). Most people start Day 1 on a Monday, so the two days of “R&R” (review and reflection) fall on the weekend. However, you can start on any day of the year you wish. You may choose to read through the book the first time as you would any other book, skipping the action steps, then beginning the course by reading one article a day and completing the action steps. To get the most out of this book, just be sure to actually do the action steps associated with each educational article.

It is suggested you get yourself a “success journal” for this course. This can be any notebook where you keep all of your written action steps organized and centralized.

When it comes to the English language, perfection is in the eye of the beholder, and it also depends on what century you're living in. I don't use words like "thither" and I don't mind ending a sentence with a preposition now and then (I paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill when I say that not ending a sentence with a preposition "is a rule up with which I will not put"). Even God ends sentences with prepositions; "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" Genesis 3:10-12.

I have a casual style of writing that is meant to be more like I am speaking directly to you. My goal is to reach as many people as possible, not to impress a select few with my perfect grammar (which I don't have anyway). My professionalism should be apparent in the content itself. Communication is about being effective, not always about being proper.

Not in this book.  I purposely kept Year to Success "religion free".  If you want to read about my thoughts on religion and God, I have other books for that :)

With 365 articles, I would be surprised if you didn't! If I attempted to make each article neutral and not offend anyone, I would have to leave out all humor, and I would not be able to communicate the true message. Trying to please everyone all the time is a recipe for failure.

I apologize if you were offended in anyway by one of my ideas, beliefs, or attempts at humor. Please accept my apology, and continue with the next day. I certainly do not ask that you accept all of my beliefs, but I ask that accept my opinion.

P.S. I hope this answer to this question did not offend you.

When writing the book, each article I was writing at the time became my favorite. I can honestly say that the book, to me, gets better and better with each day. However, if I had to pick a favorite day I would pick day 43 - "livin' the high life". It is very personal to me and contains an element of success that very few people realize.

I believe that having faith in anything that you believe will help you succeed, is another way of increasing one's odds of success.  However, I also believe that one's dependence on an outside force (God, the universe, lady luck, etc.) to bring one success will ultimately lead to failure. It reminds me of the story of the priest that prayed everyday to the Lord to win the lottery, then after 10 years the priest lost faith and starting cursing the Lord saying, "Why God? I have devoted my life to serving you. Why will you not grant me this one wish?" Then, a loud booming voice came from the sky and said, "Priest, meet me half way - buy a ticket!"

I have heard success being defined as "getting what you want" and happiness as "wanting what you get".  In that sense, it seems obvious that happiness is most important.  Then again, if your definition of success includes happiness...

Read the book, "Year To Success".

I can understand that taking advice from someone much younger seems a bit strange. However wisdom is not about age, it is about experience. Nor, is the ability to teach about age. It has been said that everyone is your superior in some way and we can all learn something from someone. As an expert in the field of success and personal achievement, allow me to share what I have learned with you.

Update: I am now about to turn 40 years old. Although I starting this book when I was 30, my "old" self is still impressed by the younger me.  Y2S is on the 3rd update now, and each time I revise the book I make updates that reflect my current understanding and experience.

Billionaires such as Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Oprah Winfrey and Sam Walton (Wal-Mart), just to name a few, were born and raised in poverty as were many world leaders including Abraham Lincoln. Conversely, I can also document many individuals who had every advantage when born and destroyed their lives. There is no doubt that those born into the right circumstances have an advantage, but this is nothing more than another factor that increases the odds of success -- it does not guarantee it.

This course is all about self-improvement, personal growth, and achievement. If you "do not have the time" you are most likely in a situation where the daily activities of your life have taken over. Take back control of your life by learning how to master your time and recognize when you are just "spinning your wheels". The information in this site will end up saving you countless hours. This course deals with time mastery techniques that will help you fit your same 15 work day into 8 hours, while being more productive.

Get up and extra 15 minutes early each day for this course. This is time invested in yourself and your education. What better way is there to spend your time?

Remember, this does not have to be an everyday commitment. You can choose to do one lesson a day or even just one a month. You do not have to do a lesson a day like you would if you were going to school. I will not call your parents if you do not "show up". Work the course at your own pace. I am confident you will enjoy it and learn so much from it that you will find the time without any problem.

That's not a question.  But this behavior and the figure of a "guru" often are associated with groups of spirituality and religion. This is one of the main reasons I avoid these topics in this course. This course is much more like an online college course covering topics such as motivation, time mastery, negotiation, management, goal setting, etc.

Shaving your head and wearing sheets is optional.

The content in this course is not difficult to comprehend. It is written by me, a non-pHd (who has handwriting like a doctor), using a writing style like I would if writing to a friend. I stay away from "big words" and I do not try to impress people with vocabulary or confusing grammar.

Do not fear struggle or hard work. Success does not come easy. You will need to struggle sometime for it. It is this struggle that will put you ahead of those who just want to pay the bills and sail through life. I can promise you this... when struggling for success it will be an exciting, enjoyable and worth while ride.

Yes I am. I am an DTM and actively involved at the international level. I love the Toastmasters organization because of the success-oriented people. It is a great organization to put many success principles into practice.  For more information on Toastmasters, visit http://www.toastmasters.org .