Closing the Gap with Reading

Rich DeVos once said "The only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is often merely the will to try it and the faith to believe that it is possible." Anyone with belief can get what they want in life, but they'll have to take themselves to the next level to do so.

I once posted something on Yahoo answers that answered a question that dealt with one of my former jobs. In the end I wrote "if anyone else needs assistance feel free to e-mail me" I long forgot about it, but several months ago I had some young business owners e-mail me asking for advice.

I sent e-mails back and forth, but I explained to them that they will have to take their level of thinking to the next level to be successful. I gave the pointers they sought, but if they were capable of running a business that produced 10-20k a month, they would have done so already. This creates a gap of where they are and where they want to be. My objective would be to help them close this gap. (If they so choose) Do I make 10-20k a month? Not yet, but if Gods plan are to use me to assist them just a little, then I've done what I'm supposed to do.

It's the foundation upon you start. If you're going to build yourself an ocean front house, you'll have to start with a good foundation. You won't be able to build it on sand, or it will come crashing down in time. In hindsight, you know you can't build a house on a sandy foundation and the same is for your life. If you lie (white lies included), cheat, or steal you might not be caught this week or this year, but eventually there will be a "crashing" moment and you'll be found out.

It's like the story of a seven and five year old that is near a hot stove. The seven year old decides to touch it to see what happens. He touches it and starts yelling and screaming. His mother comes rushing in to see what happened. She explained to them that they can't touch a hot stove without getting hurt. Moral of the story is both kids learn the lesson not to touch a hot stove, but the seven year old learned through his personal experience, while the five year old learned from someone else's experience.

How do you get experience from others? Books are a great way of taking years of experience and compacting into a few hours of reading. My mentor once suggested that I should read these books (with MANY others), I suggest you do the same. Some of these books have sold millions and millions of copies.

1.) How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
2.) Personality Plus by Florence Littauer
3.) How to Have Power and Confidence in dealing with people by Les Giblin
4.) Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz
5.) 25 Ways to Win with People by John Maxwell
6.) Launching a Leadership Revolution by Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward

I'll leave you with this Albert Einstein observed "The problems we face today cannot be solved on the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."