Motivation Booklet Elements

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By Captain Bob Webb

The person who achieved their goal had a VISION that MOTIVATED them.

A vision that motivates is the standard cfor success across all social classes and/or lifestyles.It does not matter how many years a person spenclassrooms, a motivating vision is the commondenominator for achievement. President AbrahamLincoln never went to school; he became Presidentbecause he had a vision that motivated him. Inaddition, his vision was so powerful that it mo

everyone around him and that energy motivated tcountry.

onstant

t in

tivated

he

This booklet will give you the tools to put purposeand meaning in your life by helping you develop avision, thereby motivating you to a more exciting

lifestyle. This can be done if you recognize barriers and work at removing them. A visionthat motivates is the secret. Achieving a desired lifestyle is the result.

We become what we think about all day.

To change our li festyle we must changeour thinking habits.

We change our thinking habits byfocusing on desired goals.

Money is not a goal -- it is areward ONLY for personal

achievement.

Dreams are more valuable thanmoney, because dreams find

opportunity.

Money FIRST does not fulfill dreamsit can kill them.

Seek your dream money will fol low.

Many people have no further ambitionother than to learn a professional skill

that supports a lifestyle that meets basic

needs. For them, life is standing still.

This attitude is the result of pressure, bysociety, to accept the status quo. Today,

students are given behavior controldrugs, forcing them to accept the status

quo. This is the end of visionaries in our

society.


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Written and Published by

Captain Bob Webb220 Ibis Lane

Goose Creek, SC 29445(843) 764-3280 Copyrighted 2006 by Robert L. Webb

This publication contains excerpts from the websiteMotivation Tool Chestmotivation-tools.com

September 2006 Edition

The information at this booklet is based on my experience andresearch that agrees with my experience. There is a lot ofgarbage and wishful thinking floating around out there. Usingmy experience as a guide, I can sort out and focus on conceptsthat I found to work.

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Topics

Three Elements of Motivation 4Motivation starts with the desire to be free, to be free from dependency on others,freedom to live the lifestyle we dream of, freedom to explore our ideas.

7 Rules of Motivation 8What is takes to hang in there.

Changing Your Lifestyle 9People who have a vision control their destiny and lifestyle. For people without avision, their destiny and lifestyle is controlled by others.

Develop a Dream 12Is day dreaming a form of education? Does daydreaming bring opportunity? Ifdreams are the beginning of opportunity, dont they have value?

Setting Goals 17

Success on achieving goals is dependent on three elements.Perseverance 19

The common argument for failure is "I lost interest or I didnt have enough money."While true, neither one is valid. Motivation depends on many factors with the primaryfactor being the power of your dreams.

Overcoming Failure 21Failure is a learning tool. Thomas Edison failed a thousand times before he inventedthe light bulb. Failure is trying to do things others have not considered. It is atemporary by-product of creativity. It is challenging the learning process.

Comfort Zones 24

Comfort zones are directly related to our dreams or goals which is associated withself-fulfilling prophecy. In order to grow and change, we must be discontent with ourcurrent comfort zone.

A Goal Is a Journey of Decisions 26A goal is a powerful desire that sends us on a journey using decisions to transport usto an unknown destination. Very often, this destination is vague because weencounter opportunities/experiences that change our thinking which changes ourdirection.

Motivational Speakers 28An occasional motivation seminar can make us feel good and can produce positive

results. On the other hand, there is a dark side.How to Make Dreams Come True 31

My Story

Self-Education 34It is possible for man to educate himself without help or support from others. In fact,when we learn the art of self-education we will find, if not create, opportunity to findsuccess beyond our wildest dreams.

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Three Elements of Motivation

Motivation starts with thedesire to be free, to be free from

dependency on others, freedom tolive the lifestyle we dream of,freedom to explore our ideas. Totalfreedom is not possible ordesirable, but the struggle toachieve that ideal is the basis formotivation.

Motivation is built on threebasic elements:

1. Motivation starts with aneed, vision, dream ordesire to achieve the seemingly impossible. Creativity is associated with ideas,projects and goals, which can be considered a path to freedom.

2. Developing a love-to-learn lifestyle, become involved with risky ventures andcontinually seek new opportunities. Success is the result of learning what worksand does not work.

3. Develop the ability to overcome barriers and to bounce back from discouragementor failure. Achievers learn to tolerate the agony of failure. In any worthwhileendeavor, barriers and failure will be there. Bouncing back requires creativethinking as it is a learning process. In addition, bouncing back requires starting

again at square one.A loss of any one part and motivation is on the rocks. For example:

If you like to be creative and love to learn but cannot face up to failure, you willnot go back and try again. Persistent is associated with bouncing back.

If you have a unique idea but dont like taking risks, ideas is all you will everhave.

There must be something in your life that turns you on. You can start byanalyzing the lifestyle of your dreams. Remember, money is not a goal, it is areward for achieving a goal.

Let's see how the parts work with Charlies family, a true story.

I was building a 50-foot wooden sailboat. During construction there were manyvisitors and one family stood out. Charlie would bring his three teenage sons on board,who seemed to be excited about everything they saw. They would focus on a constructionmethod or potential problem and exchange ideas on its strong and weak points, or discusother ways to achieve the same results. Charlie would ask leading questions and his sonswould have answers, each one trying to give a better answer. When one teen presented a

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possible dumb idea, the others did not put him down, they countered with other

possibilities.

It was not only on my boat they excised creative thinking -- this was their life style,always asking why and offering other possibilities. They had a workshop where familymembers could work on projects. They needed "U" bolts for one of their projects. Afterthreading a steel rod at both ends, they needed to bend them. They made a furnace from afive-gallon bucket and used the blower end of a vacuum cleaner for draft. They buried therods in the red-hot charcoal. When pulling them out they had stubs. The fire was so hot it

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melted the steel. They did not realize how hot the furnace was. The only way to learn andget experiences is to try.

Farther and sons were a team that focused on creativity. A wild idea was somethingto embrace and develop. The teens were excited about life and highly motivated.

Charlie kept active the three legs of motivation:1. Creativity was encouraged with the understanding there was no dumb idea. At

this time, they had no goals that I know of.

2. To maintain the love-to-learn, they had a workshop, providing opportunity toexperiment with ideas and develop projects.

3. Most ideas did not work, but with each try they learned something, especiallywhat did not work. They were learning from failure and learning to bounce backfrom it.

By keeping all three-motivation elements active, Charlies sons were highlymotivated. Creative thinking was promoted and supported. In the adult world, their

creative skills will find a profitable market. More important, they will not have toovercome negative barriers carried over from their teen years.

Compare Charlie to parents who are always putting down any idea their childrenmight present. A gulf develops between them and soon the teen keeps all thoughts tothem self. Many parents consider childrens wild ideas something to grow out of. This isthe killing of creativity, the first leg of motivation. Putting down ideas is teachingchildren to accept the status quo. Forcing children to accept the status quo is the buildingof barriers. In the adult word, most never overcome these barriers.

Let's consider Kens parents who do not support or discourage, wild ideas, but

tolerate them.

Ken is a typical thirteen-year-old boy, who is being exposed to truck loads ofinformation via Internet, TV, and printed matter. He does not do well in school and hisreading is not up to par, but he does work on self-motivated projects that interest him. Hescans a variety of projects, usually related to a broad theme such as computers, mechanicsor electronics. As time passes it becomes obvious that his interest is narrowing to flying,he reads more on this subject that any other. He is becoming focused and wants to engagein flying projects, so as to be connected. Teenagers, without support, dont have manyresources. Ken uses what he has, that is, cutting out pictures of airplanes and/orassembles plastic airplane models. For resourceful teens, this limited opportunity offersways to be creative. Simple projects turn into elaborate projects, as resources becomeavailable, flying radio control models, for example. Somewhere along the way, a burningdesire is developing and this desire is associated with natural talent.

Ken is at a crossroads. School is telling him he is a failure while his flying interestis teaching him the art of how-to-learn in a natural learning environment. He is underpressure by parents and teachers to give classroom studies priority. How will he react?

Under pressure, every teen reacts differently. If Kens ambition is crushed, he mayor may not bounce back again. Without support, teens give up easily and sometimes turn

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to rebellion where they take on self-destructive goals. Formal education and flyingambitions are dead. Motivation is dead.

If Ken's parents recognized his natural interest and supported it, he could achieve

the impossible.

As adults, most of us had our teenage dreams putdown and we accepted the status quo.Trying to bring old dreams back to life again is extremely difficult. The barriers are huge,but they can be overcome.

At-risk youth are in the process of rejecting the status quo. The problem is, theyreject everything and become losers. All of us were born with a natural desire to learnand be an achiever. During our teen years, we were pressured to accept the status quo andwe reacted to that pressure. At-risk youth can be a reminder of what we went through.

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7 Rules of Motivation

#1 Set a major goal, but follow a path. The path has mini goalsthat go in many directions. When you learn to succeed at mini goals,

you will be motivated to challenge grand goals.

#2 Finish what you start. A half finished project is of no use toanyone. Quitting is a habit. Develop the habit of finishing self-motivated projects.

#3 Socialize with others of similar interest. Mutual support ismotivating. We will develop the attitudes of our five best friends. Ifthey are losers, we will be a loser. If they are winners, we will be a

winner. To be a cowboy we must associate with cowboys.

#4 Learn how to learn. Dependency on others for knowledgesupports the habit of procrastination. Man has the ability to learnwithout instructors. In fact, when we learn the art of self-educationwe will find, if not create, opportunity to find success beyond ourwildest dreams.

#5 Harmonize natural talent with interest that motivates.Naturaltalent creates motivation, motivation creates persistence andpersistence gets the job done.

#6 Increase knowledge on subjects that inspires. The more weknow about a subject, the more we want to learn about it. A self-propelled upward spiral develops.

#7 Take risk. Failure and bouncing back are elements of motivation.Failure is a learning tool. No one has ever succeeded at anythingworthwhile without a string of failures.

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Changing Your Lifestyle

We have the opinion that money can buy a desired lifestyle. Money cannot buy alifestyle! A desired lifestyle is the result of a vision with a burning desire to reach a goal.Achievement is the result of planned action to bust through barriers to make desired

events happen. Success, money and resulting lifestyle are rewards only, not goals.

What is success, money or a desired lifestyle? Our society measures success withmoney. A lifestyle of personal achievement is real success -- money is a reward orbyproduct.

In 1964, I was living on the beach inTahiti, building a replica of a Polynesiandouble hull boat with the goal of sailing itto Hawaii. My work site was next to aPolynesian village of five one-room hwhere most family members slept on the

floor. The village shared one outhoushad no door. The opening faced the mainpath that allowed one to talk to passer biewhile attending to business. Women wtake off their pareu and hang it on twohooks to close the opening. There was oneshower stall with sheet metal sides aboutfour feet high. Again, one could take ashower while talking to the neighbors.After dark, the teenagers would gatherunder coconut trees along the beach and

sing - I would stand to one side and listen.Every morning a teenage girl set a potcoffee and a loaf of French bread outsidemy tent before I got up. I was living a

lifestyle I had dreamed of for years.

We a

omes,

e that

rsould

of

ll wish we could live a dramaticlifesty

m

Bob and the Liki Tiki he built in Tahiti.

le. The difference between wishing and living is taking action to bust throughbarriers to make a desired lifestyle happen. The following is how I made my escape froa TV watcher to an adventurer in paradise.

My dream was to live on a beach in the South Pacific , chase Polynesian

girls, build a traditional Polynesian boat and sail it f rom Tahiti to Hawaii.

At the age of 25, I was living in Oklahoma City trying to start my car in subzeroweather, scraping ice from the windshield and driving to work on icy roads. At this time,I was picturing myself on a white sand beach somewhere in the tropical South Pacific. Iwas doing more than dreaming, I was working hard to overcome barriers that preventedme from making my dream come true. The first barrier was debts. I was living frompayday to payday and "owed my soul to the company store" so to speak. Working for

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creditors was NOT an enjoyable lifestyle. The second barrier was friends negativereaction to my ambitions. They implied that it was time to grow up and forget childishdreams. It is next to impossible to carry out dreams in this environment. The third barrierwas money, which soon became memory when the first two barriers were conquered.

My creditors were controlling my destiny and lifestyle.

Living from payday to payday is a lifestyle that is easy to adapt because we canacquire materialistic wealth NOW. It does not matter if we make $20,000 or $100,000 ayear, higher income means higher debts. An increasing debt load strengthens the payday-to-payday lifestyle while burying the elusive dream deeper in memory. Our socialenvironment is another factor that controls the persistence needed to fulfill our dream.Success is easier when we have the support of family and friends, but this not alwayspossible. When barriers become overpowering, most people succumb to being a slave tocreditors and adapt to their current social environment. This is the path of least resistance.

Ask yourself; what is it you are seeking, money or lifestyle? Most people wantmoney because they think they can buy a desirable lifestyle, so their primary goal is towish for more money. Playing the lottery is an example of a wish - it is not possible tolearn how to buy a winning lottery ticket. More money is not the result of a wish - it isthe result of personal achievement, learning how to increase the value of our services.When I finished my 6-weeks training at hard-hat diving school, the value of my serviceswent from $15 per hour to $45 per hour. Hard-hat diving was also a lifestyle I enjoyed

and I was rewarded with money.(wage in 2003 dollars)

When we base our goal onpersonal achievement with aburning desire, self-discipline

and persistence, we will find themoney to reach our goal. It is notmoney first it is the pursuit ofachievement first elements thatcost nothing acquire. We muststrive toward achievement withresources available at the time,learn to move ahead with whatwe have, however limited thatmay be.

My first goal was to put a

halt to creditors controlling mylifestyle by learning to live within my income while paying off debts. My desiredlifestyle of adventure would not tolerate debts. The year 1961 was the last time in my lifeI had a payday-to-payday debt burden. I then had the freedom and opportunity to searchfor employment in high paying companies and join social groups that supported mydreams of adventure. In my case, I found employment with the Panama Canal Companyin Panama as a machinist. Panama is the crossroads of the world for adventures and thisbecame my home base for jungle and sea adventures. The companys bi-weekly

Bob was employed by the Panama CanalCompany, Panama. He worked on the locks wherethey raise and lower the ships.

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newsletter often had articles about employees adventures. Panamas newspaper, The Star& Herald, often wrote about adventures traveling through Panama. In this adventurecharged environment I could tell of my ideas, get support and support others. In 1964, Iwas living on a beach in Tahiti with two forty-foot dugout canoes, fulfilling the dream ofliving in the South Sea Islands. Two years earlier, 1962, the opportunity to acquire these

huge dugout canoes and ship them to Tahiti was impossible by all standards of reasoning.At that time, I had no debts, but I did not have any money either.

To start, you need a vision of the person you want to be.

Being debt free and living a dynamic lifestyle sounds great to all of us. The reasonmost people only wish and do not act is because they have no clear vision of the personthey want to be. All they know is they want more money. Without a clear vision, nothingis going to happen. Most people, in their youth, had a vision, but family and friends killedambitions by making a mockery of their ideas. The pressure to be socially acceptable wasstrong and they gave up the dream, then the realities of adult responsibility sealed theirfate. For people without a vision, the best way to start is to go back to their youth and dig

up old dreams. Start researching and see where they lead.

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Develop Your Dream

Is day dreaming a form of education?

Does daydreaming bring opportunity?

If dreams are the beginning of opportunity,dont they have value?

Three Types of Dreams

1. Socially acceptable dreams are based onprofessional skills that are looked upon, bysociety, with high esteem. Parents want theirchild to be an equivalent of an engineer, doctor,or lawyer. There are many high paying skills such as welder or machinist; that donot require a high school education. Society views these with low esteem;

therefore, they are considered low ambition. Society encourages youth to avoidthese skills, yet, many blue-collar skills pay more than a degree does.

2. Wishful thinking is the start of all dreams. It is the starter to get the motorrunning. For many, wishful thinking is used for all the wrong reasons, becausetheir dreams are based on greed, to get something for nothing in return. There isno way to learn how to buy a winning lottery ticket and opportunity does not fallinto peoples lap without giving something in return such as a skill. Manyprofessionals seem to think their learning days are over when they mastered thebasics and revert to wishful thinking.

3. Socially unacceptable dreams cannot be comprehended by the public. Originalideas attract criticism; and are considered unrealistic until proven valid. Manypeople cannot face criticism; therefore, they avoid innovative ideas. This is whereinnovators find opportunity.

How dramatic experiences puts dreams into action.

This is a summary of the story below.

From the time I was a teenager I had dreams of adventure, but did not have thecourage to strike out on my own until I help crew a 36-foot sailboat from Hawaii to LosAngeles. Hindsight observations:

On this trip, I carried with me a dream, to sail a dugout canoe across the PacificOcean. This experience gave me the courage to be a doer and carry it out. Threeyears later, I was living on a beach in Tahiti building theLiki Tiki.

Other crewmembers did not have a dream; they were there for the challenge or thefun of it. Because they did not have a dream, they were not inspired to reachhigher goals. The trip was something to talk about.

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Years of dreaming prepared me to get the most out of this dramatic experience. Inother words, a dream with opportunity gets things done. A dramatic experience without adream will do nothing.

How I Started

I have always had socially unacceptable concepts. I found out later that myambitions are unacceptable to people who live a different lifestyle than the one I wantedto live. When I associate with other adventures, my dreams become socially acceptable.

The book, Kon Tiki is a story how sixmen sailed a raft across the Pacific Ocean i1948. Their adventure inspired my dream ofduplicating their crossing of the PacificOcean. I added a dreamed of chasingPolynesian girls on the white sand beachesof the South Pacific. This dream motivated

me to be an achiever and helped me findsuccess. Society considers this type ofdream to be socially unacceptable.

n

How can a dream of wild adventurehave educational value? I was a teenagerliving in New Jersey with no remotepossibility of hope or opportunity to do thethings I dreamed about. I had noexperience, knowledge of the sea or lifeoutside of my hometown. Friends or familywould not support my dream. In fact, mydream was the stupidest thing they everheard of. In school, I was always starringout the windows and in my mind, I couldsee the bow of my sailboat plowing throughthe water, I could see myself exploring thejungles of South America and monkeysswinging through the trees. Then BANG!!!The teachers yardstick hitting my deskbrought me back to the real world where

none of the subjects related to my interest and dreamers are related to dummies.

As a teenager, the bookKon Tikiinspired Bob to seek a lifestyle ofadventure.

A second book, unknowing, taught me the art of self-education. ChapmansPiloting Seamanship & Small Boat Handling had twenty-seven comprehensive basicsubjects, from nautical terms to weather to boating customs. All related to inland boating.The volume of information was overwhelming. I needed this knowledge if I were to sailto the South Pacific and chase girls.

In Chapmans book, I started with the chapter on Rules of the Road. I made modelsof buoys, boats, and make-believe charts. With my models, I found it easy to absorbeverything I read. I simulated ships approaching each other and maneuvering to keep

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from colliding or going aground. I simulated compass headings. I simulated wind andcurrents. Using string, I made a poster of knots. I studied chapters where subjects couldbe turned into objects. I turned information into knowledge because I had a dream and agoal, all of which related to my interest. I was motivated to learn about seamanship.

I showed the rules-of-the-road project to my science teacher. She told me to forget

it, the subject was beyond my comprehension. If asked to write a report on the project, Icould not, because I could not write clear thoughts on paper and models are not acceptedas a substitute. Soon after that, I became tired of being labeled a student with no abilitiesand refused to go back to school. Today,I wonder if my project was beyond myteachers comprehension and she had nointerest in it.

At the age of 17, I was working ona factory production floor on themidnight shift. I seemed to have anattitude and learning ability thatimpressed my bosses. They soon gave metask that required greater responsibilityand I worked at every task with 110%effort. One assignment was to cutceramic tubs into one inch lengths,(15,000) one at a time. The companynever threw anything away and had pilesof production equipment parts. I askedfor permission to make a machine thatwould cut the tubs automatically. Theyagreed. After three days I completed amachine that would cut five at a time andall I had to do was feed a hopper. Ireceived praise from my boss,coworkers. I was labeled as someonewho is going places, the opposite of myschool days. I was motivated and I needed money to buy my first boat. Because I wasmotivated, opportunity came my way.

Bob and his cat Salty sailing the Liki TikiToo, 5,000 miles, from Panama to Hawaii.

I kept reading books and magazines on boating and the South Seas. Looking back, Iwas learning how-to-learn as well as a love-to-learn by using subjects that motivated meand a learning method that worked for me. I learned with objects and objects that had a

purpose motivated me. By the age of thirty-five, I achieved every dream I had as ateenager, including chasing girls in Tahiti. One modification, I sailed across the PacificOcean in a dugout canoe, with outriggers instead of a raft.

Wild teenage dreams are considered to have little value and are discouraged byparents and friends. By the time people turn twenty, they are taught not to dream andaccept life as they found it, the status quo. I refused to let my wild dreams die and refusedto accept the life I was raised in. Without my wild dream of duplicating the Kon Tikivoyage, opportunity of becoming a hard-hat diver would never have happened. Without

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the Kon Tiki dream, I would never have become a Windjammer Captain. Without the KonTiki dream, hundreds of other adventure related experiences would never have happened.Persistent dreams are followed by opportunity.

The dreams I had were on the wild side and were not socially acceptable. I had tokeep them to myself. Socially acceptable dreams are subjects that are taught in school. It

is OK to say "I want to be a doctor." It is not OK to say "I want to sail a raft across thePacific Ocean." It might be OK to say "I want to be a welder," but society associatesmedal trades with low ambition. Yet, the medal trade is where I found the money to besuccessful.

Dreams First, Education Second

I was a Captain of a windjammer for motivating teenagers and witnessed the rapidchange in their lives. There is no experience like being far at sea on a dark night at thehelm with a full moon shining on billowing sails high above. The wind in the sails andthe waves splashing on the hull gives a feeling of personal power, "I can do anything."While steering the ship, other crewmembers are on deck playing a guitar and singing.

This is the time when dreams are made and realizing we can take the helm of our life andsteer it to our destination.

With a dream, information is easy to process into knowledge. Money to reach ourdream also becomes easier to acquire. People with a dream act differently, they seem tohave meaning and purpose to their life. Bosses and customers favor positive attitudes andoffered opportunity, which means higher income, usually. An upward spiral of highintensity motivation and opportunity continue to follow.

In the formal education world, most technical colleges require students to have aGED certificate or better before they can learn welding or machine shop skills. Thissystem requires all people to be an intellectual before they are allowed to develop

dreams. As a result, most would-be welders or machinists, who are technical, never havea chance. What if windjammer-training programs required all students to have a GEDcertificate and, required all students to read a compass and plot a course before they couldcome aboard? There would be empty ships, never developed dreams and lost opportunity.Experience builds dreams and a dream motivates people to learn.

Technical colleges are intended for technical people who learn differently thanintellectuals. Instead of heavy academic requirements, build dreams first, and then insertacademics as students discover the need for them. The concept "opportunity first thenknowledge" motivates people to learn. It works aboard windjammers, why not in school?

Society Attacks Dreamers

All children dream and play make-believe. For some reason, as they grow older,they are instructed to stop dreaming and face reality. Reality seems to be important,whether it be friends, parents or teachers. Academic education has top priority whiledreams have low priority. Yet, there has never been an achievement that did not beginwith a dream. There has never been success without many failures. Why is it that societywants everyone to succeed without failure? Why does society have a need to kill dreams,especially with teenagers?

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During the dreaming stage, one is alone with his seemly impossible ideas. Whentalking about ideas, the first reaction is... "Where did he get that nutty idea?" All greatinventors and achievers go through this phase, especially during the failure days. After afew successes, people say nothing about wild ideas. Add a few more successes; everyonewill support any idea you have.

It takes persistence to find what works. Only you realize your ideas havepossibilities, the public will not realize possibilities until you prove them to be of value.After the Wright Brothers invented the airplane and proved man can fly, it took two yearsbefore anyone thought flying was a practical idea. The U.S. Army rejected considerationof the invention outright. All through the development years, people considered TheWright Brothers nuts. To shield themselves from criticism, they only informed peoplewho could help them and took criticism, if necessary, for their help.

Employers want motivated people. The problem is, they want employees'motivation to be built around the companys interest. If I applied for a job and said, "myambition is to earn money to buy a boat, sail to the South Seas and chase girls," I wouldbe escorted out the door. The theory is, people whose ambitions are different from thecompanys will not be dedicated to their job. The fact is, people with ambitions arededicated to anyone who will help them reach their goals. People who dont have dreamsor ambitions are not motivated and are not dedicated to anything except the paycheck.

Many people yield to dream killers. In their thoughts, "my friends are right, myideas are all nutty" and give up. This belief may be true when first exploring an idea.There is no such thing as success on the first try, except in the classroom. Giving up islosing ambition, opportunity, higher income, and eventual success. A downward spiral ofself-esteem follows.

Bob and his friends on their Amazon River Raft - 1963

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Setting Goals

The common formula for success is: "Set a goal and a time-frame for achieving it."The goal is what you want to achieve and the time frame is to help you stay focused onthe goal. Perseverance brings success."

In the above statement, the term "time frame" has conditions. Three basic elementsmust be under full control - skills, resources and support. A completion date cannot beestablished with weak or missing elements.

Elements

1. Skills - knowledge, experience, natural talentSuper achievers have ambitions and goals that are in harmony with theirnatural talents. Someone who has natural a talent for composing musicwill have a low efficiency rating developing mechanical designs. Someonewho has natural talent for mechanical designs will have a low efficiency

rating for composing music. (There are exceptions, but they are rare.) It isimportant to discover your natural talent and set goals that are in harmonywith it. This discovery may be difficult, but it is generally related topersonal interest or what motivates you.

2. Resources - ownership, resources, moneyMoney is a very important resource that must be managed wisely. Youcannot control resources if creditors are in control. Super achievers havelearned to live within their means.

3. Support - people, organizationsSocialize with people who have similar interest.

Examples

Contractors that bid on jobs must have required skills, resources and support inplace. They cannot hope they are doing it right or have the required resources.Success depends on accurate estimates of cost and job time.

Businesses that succeed have all elements in place. Many new entrepreneurs failbecause they lack one or more of the elements. Lack of knowledge and experienceis the primary reason for failure. However, failure is a learning tool andpersistence will acquire all the elements for success.

Education organizations apply all the elements needed for student success. Thereis a goal and a time frame to reach that goal. All a student has to do is accept theterms.

Most major goals require mini goals. Acquiring skills can be considered a minigoal. The same can be said for resources. When a new entrepreneur finally puts it alltogether and succeeds, he is elated and starts setting bigger goals. At this time, theprocess starts all over again. With experience on what it takes to get it right, setbacks arenot as severe.

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Pitfalls for the inexperienced - When we observer a professional achievingresults, we think, "I can do that, look how easy it is." Should we try to do thesame thing, we soon discover that success is the result of skills, hard work andpersistence. This is why people fall for get-rich-quick offers. It is presented in away that looks simple and easy, only to discover it does not work that way. When

the money is gone, there is little to show for it. To do - Set a goal and strive to achieve that goal no matter how long it takes.

With similar goals in the future, you will have the skills needed to set a timeframe for achievement.

We become what we think about all day. If we are focused on our goal, wewill achieve it. If we spend all day thinking about our debts debts is all weever have. In this case, creditors are controll ing our lives. The only way tostop th inking about debts is to get them under control and then you can

focus on your goals.

A person does not know what they are capable of unt il they try. Trying andfailing is better than not trying at all.

Remember - Money, power and influence are not goals they are rewardsONLY for personal achievement.

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Perseverance

The common argument for failure is " I lost interest or I didnt have enoughmoney." While true, neither one is valid.

Motivation depends on many factors with the primary factor being the power ofyour dreams. Money is one of the barriers that can be overcome. Achievement requiresdeveloping attitudes/habits that keep you on track. Example, develop a habit of gettingjobs done with resources available. With this skill, creativity will eliminate many moneyproblems. Persistence is a combination of factors such as a burning desire and pride, thatprograms the comfort zone to pressure us to keep bouncing back. We try again, but in adifferent direction. It is important to implement many motivational tools so the projectwill keep moving when we dont feel like it. In time, motivation will drive us even whenthe going becomes strenuous and we wish the project would go away. We all have timesof weakness. Persistence may seem steady in others, but in reality, it flows like the oceantide.

Fantasizing

Fantasizing is a startup tool to precondition the mind to believe it must achieve aclearly defined goal. Fantasizing is creating pictures in our mind on how we would reactto events if our dream were real. Fantasizing has several important elements.

Fantasizing creates a burning desire. Fantasizing prepares our mind to accept opportunity when it arrives. Without this

preparation we would not recognizes opportunity or if we did, fear would set inand we would reject it.

Fantasizing is a type of business plan written in our head. Questions are beingasked, what will it take to make this idea work and how will problems behandled?

People, who seem to make quality decisions when everything goes wrong, hadfantasized theses problems during the years when their idea was just a dream. Toillustrate how fantasizing programs our mind, I will use an experience my wife and I hadaboard our 50-foot sailboat Hunky-Dory. We were sailing from North Carolina toBermuda when, after dark, the wind was blowing above 60 knots and the main sail wasstill up. If I didnt get the sail down the mast would come down. Waves were comingaboard and covering our ports. From inside the cabin we could see the underside ofwaves. I had never experienced this kind of wind or seas except by fantasizing.

I said to my wife, "I must go on deck and take the sails down."

She hollered, "Dont go on deck." She had never thought about a situation like thisand her first reaction was to make believe nothing damaging would happen.

I said, "I must go topside into the storm, there is no choice. If the mast comes downwe will be helpless."

I put on my safety harness and crawled to the bow. With tremendous wind pressureon the sail, I had to winch down the main sail. My wife stood in the partly open hatch and

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helped by pulling on the sheets. If she fell, she would fall into the cabin, not in the ocean.My confidence gave her confidence and we got the sail down. In my youth, I fantasizedsituation like this. This time it was not fantasy, it was real.

Fantasizing during the years before opportunity is the difference between can-doleaders in a crisis and followers. It prepares people for the day when dreams become

reality. I prepared my mind to accept the fact that being lost at sea is a real possibility.Accepting the worst makes risk possible. And we must take risk in order to succeed.

Burning Desire

A burning desire is the result of active fantasizing. It puts powerful motivatingforces into action. It can overcome all self-imposed limits. Natural skills and learningmethods may be barriers, but they are temporary. It has more potential than any educationsystem can offer, because, to succeed, knowledge is needed to be the best we can be. Ifthere is a destiny, this is where it starts.

Sometimes a dramatic personal impact, known or unknown causes a burning desire.This experience reveals a need for more information or services to help deal with it.Trying to understand, leads to knowledge, action, and/or opportunity. Sometimes it isnecessary or advantages to take action before knowledge is acquired. In any case, adramatic experience is highly motivating and all stops should be removed to benefit fromit.

We all have a basic desire to be lazy. This is a powerful motivating force becausewe dream of being lazy and we work hard to fulfill that dream. It doesnt sound right, butits true. People work hard to be lazy. Then there are people who dont dream about beinglazy, they are.

There are two types of laziness:

Constructive laziness increases creative skills because we dont like to do morework than necessary. People search for the easiest way to get jobs done. They alsowork hard for opportunity, to enjoy what life has to offer. The desire to be lazy isa motivating force.

Destructive laziness is associated with people who are not motivated, the desire todo less takes over. They feel robbed of opportunity and the world passes them by.

One of my goals was to sail to the South Pacific, chase girls and lay under coconuttrees. I worked hard to achieve that dream. Once in the South Pacific, I found sittingunder coconut trees had no challenge and I was in the habit of seeking new challengingprojects. Also, I was married, which nicked the girl chasing idea. Anyhow, my dream got

me to the South Pacific in my sailboat, which was the primary goal. Many peoplereadjust priorities when they face reality. In the meantime, dreaming producesperseverance with positive results.

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Overcoming Failure

Failure Can Be Positive or Negative

Failure is a learning tool. Thomas Edison failed a thousand times before he

invented the light bulb. Failure is trying to do things others have not considered. It is atemporary byproduct of creativity. It is challenging the learning process. It is experientialeducation at work. The real winners in life tolerate failure and the agony it produces.Success is achieved by those who are willing to take risk and lose.

Many people choose to engage in occupations and activities that are safe andconventional. They do not deliver satisfaction, fulfillment or joy in living. Their realfailure is failing to move in the directions of their dreams.

If everything you do works, you are not trying hard enough.

" I want to find people who have had to work hard and who havelearned from their failures. Perseverance is no guarantee you'llsucceed, but without it , it's almost guaranteed you won' t"

Steve Case, CEO of America on Line

Bouncing Back From Failure

Do you see the possibilities of an idea, project or goal? Are you experiencingbarriers that prevents fulfillment? With every idea, there are barriers, hundreds of them, if

not more.

If you vision something that is different from everyone else, there are two reasons,you have an idea that few have considered or it is not practical. How do you tell goodideas from bad ones, research and listening to peoples reasons why it wont work? As arule, no one will support an original idea until there is sufficient evidence that it ispractical. Even when proving it is practical, people may reject it. Fifty years after thelight bulb was invented, some people still rejected it. You have to do all the legwork tofind evidence. If you find evidence, skills and resources must be acquired at the sametime everyone is telling you the idea is dumb. This is a very difficult barrier to overcome.You see the possibilities and potential of a project while everyone else sees the risk and

barriers. Also note, there is no success where research, facing up to pros and cons, is notextensive. Evaluate negative opinions to stay on the right track. Without negativeopinions, it is easy to stray off course. The original concept of the light bulb was a dumbidea.

Negative opinions can discourage one to give up. For this reason, it becomesnecessary to limit exposure of the project to people who can help, even if theydisapprove. Even a select group will not see the potential until you succeed. When you do

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succeed, others will no longer see the barriers, they are gone, they will want to know howyou did it.

What if the idea turns into a total failure? You learned a lot and next time you mayget it right and succeed. No achiever has arrived without failure.

Most franchise, copying ideas and get-rich-quick schemes can be deadly traps.They come with high approval rating and no negative opinions. Their success is praisedwhile the facts may be distorted. People believe what they want to, and easy success iswhat we want to hear. For this reason, there is little independent research, which leads todisaster. What if the fantastic project turns into total failure? What does it feel like to be asucker? Buying into a promotion is like playing the lottery, there is no way to learn howto buy a winning lottery ticket.

Failure is a learning tool. Our first reaction to failure is to blame anyone/anythingbut ourselves. If we perceive others are to blame, then there is nothing we can do tocorrect the problem. We cannot change peoples personalities, neither can they changeours. If we assume responsibility, then we can analyze what went wrong and take

corrective action. This is the art of bouncing back from failure.Failure is discouraging, it drains energy and resources, but it forces us to do things

right. Failure separates those who think they want success from those who are determinedto win. Failure narrows the playing field. The first people out are those that blame others,next out are those who lost interest. The weak go first. The strong learn to hang in thereand keep bouncing back until they win.

Sometimes failure is telling us we are going in the wrong direction. Heres thedilemma. If we give up, is it because we were going in the wrong direction or because wegave up? The only way to tell is to abandon the project or put it to rest for a time. Veryoften, this is forced on us because we are out of money or resources. When the mind is

free of pressures, realistic planning emerges. This lull was not wasted, it had greatbenefit, it is the art of redirection. When you try again, chances are you will get it right.New outlooks is the result of bouncing back from failure.

The Desire to Fail

For some reason, man has a natural desire to fail. This desire is difficult to identifybecause it is fulfilled in subtle ways. For example: People will max-out credit cards ontrivia, creating debts that makes it impossible to fulfill their deepest dreams. They gamblewhen they know the odds are against them.

A habit of success requires the ability to recognize elements that destroy. The manthat makes $30,000 fears risk. The man who makes $1,000,000 accepts risk. In the early

stages, everyone in subtle ways fears risk and failure. Fears, whatever they are, must befaced up too and dealt with. Fantasizing can help accomplish this by creating a burningdesire that is more powerful than fear.

Leaders, who demand control over others, are teaching them to fail and ultimatelythemselves. It is easy to control people who accept the belief that they are failures. In thissituation, the motivation tool is reward and punishment. The intent may be to motivatepeople to cooperate, but very often the results remind people they are failures and many

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accept this as fact. Disciplinary action means internal motivation has not worked andexternal motivation is reverted to. In business, the long-term results could be deadly.Self-fulfilling prophecy takes over.

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Analyze Your Comfort Zone

The Comfort Zone is our living, work, and social environments that we havegrown accustom too. It determines the type of friends we make or people

we associate with. It determines a life style we accept or reject.

Young people are very adaptable, they can adjust to changing comfort zones withease. They can socialize with homeless people in the morning and be equally at east at aformal banquet in the evening. As we age, the ability to adapt to wide-ranging comfortzones, becomes more difficult. Social prejudice narrows the comfort zone range. Ourpresent comfort zone is in one of the following conditions.

We want to maintain our current comfort zone. We are dissatisfied with current conditions and want to move to another comfort

zone.

We were suddenly thrust from our comfort zone and want back in. We need to make decisions without supporting facts. The comfort zone can be a

decision making tool.

If you were content with your current comfort zone, you would not be reading thiswebsite. Because you are reading, it is assumed you want to make some changes in theway you live and work. That brings us to step two. If you are dissatisfied with your lifestyle, you can change it by changing your comfort zone.

Comfort zones are directly related to our dreams or goals, which is associated withself-fulfilling prophecy. In order to grow and change, we must first be discontent with ourcurrent comfort zone. To change to different life style, establishing a business, or

succeeding at a challenging project, we must realize that all meaningful and lastingchanges occur first in daydreaming (fantasizing) and then they work their way intoreality. If we clearly and vividly imagine ourselves being and having the things we trulywant, we will create a new picture of ourselves. The old comfort zone, in time, will beunacceptable and we will find ways to acquire the new.

For example, if we want to sail the South Pacific in our own sailboat, we mustclearly and vividly, image ourselves sitting in the cockpit of our boat and think about thechallenge this environment would bring. This includes accepting the dangers along withthe pleasures. The key to upgrading our comfort zone is to raise our self-image and levelof what we expect or want first, then we will find opportunity to make the goal reality.

The more clearly and vividly we fantasize our dream, with frequent repetitions andemotional impact, the stronger and more real the pictures on the subconscious level willbecome. Once our subconscious accepts this image and its expectation, the subconsciouswill go to work, searching for a way to bring it into reality. If we feel that these things aretoo good for us, we will find ways to fail. If, however, we intentionally use ourimagination to:

Imagine the change we want.

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Build an expectation of the change. Mentally and emotionally, prepare ourselves for the change by anticipating what

it will be like.

We will find ways to acquire dream and, when mentally ready, it will arrive faster

than we ever thought possible. In effect, what we are doing is deliberately preparing forself-fulfilling prophecy. As has been repeated many times, "Whatever the mind canconceive and believe, it can achieve."

For some people, problems, suffering, poverty, bad breaks are their comfort zone.Try to take away these problems and they will fight back. They find comfort in findingfault and complaining about their misfortune. The same is true for businesses. Dailycrisis, employees making bad decisions, accidents, trivial problems, confrontationbetween management and workers is a workforce comfort zone. Management andworkers have grown accustom to seeing things go wrong and expect them too.Management finds comfort in finding fault with workers and workers find comfort infinding fault with management.

Negative comfort zones can be overcome by setting and thinking about positivegoals. What we think about all day and what we expect, be it positive or negative, is ourcomfort zone.

Note: If the comfort zone we are seeking is beyond our current income, then, weneed to develop a service that has greater value than our current one. Money, power andinfluence are not goals, they are rewards ONLY for personal achievement.

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A Goal Is a Journey of Decisions

A goal is a desire that sends us on a journey using decisions to transport us to anunknown destination. Very often, this destination is vague because we encounteropportunities/experiences that change our thinking which changes our direction. One

thing is certain; the destination will be exhilarating or discouraging. On this journey, weset priorities and make decisions, which will prevent or create problems.

Journeys of unknown destinations require experiments. Every reasonable idea mustbe tried and tested. Testing ideas, results in gaining experience, which increases ourknowledge. Very often, decisions give us an uncomfortable gut feeling long before weknow the results. Gut feelings are intuitive forces that are signaling us to consider otheroptions. If our lives were not filled with so many emotions, gut feeling would be areliable alert-flag that would prevent problems or lead us to opportunity

Some decisions may help for a short while, and then they become wrong. A neededservice or information was acquired that will be needed in the future. It is discouraging

that something seems right, and then turns wrong, but this is normal. As we gainexperience, quality choices become obvious.

In reality, every decision is a success. The results may not be what we had in mind,but we gain valuable experience, that will influence future decision-making. Anyhow, weknow what works and does not work.

In our imaginary journey the path winds around an imaginary lake named LakeSuccess. On the other side, we see potential customers waving money around and wewant to get over there fast. The path around Lake Success requires that we acquire manyskills. The only way we can safely arrive is to stay on the path and learn what it takes tomake every step right. At the end, we will have quality information to make quality

decisions. With this information, we can control the results.But, there is a distraction. On the other side of the lake, we see customers waving

money. Easy money is extremely tempting. We are tempted to take a short cut, swim overand grab it. We may be dragging a heavy debt load and new money would relieve thisburden. There are a hundred valid reasons to take shortcuts so we will try.

While swimming across the lake we focus on the money and off the service thatfirst motivated us. We make costly unwise decisions that created many costly problems.If the debt load does not drown us into total failure, we will be forced back to shore andon the path, poorer but wiser. There are no rewards until we learn to complete tasks right.We must stay focused on what we want to accomplish, not the money. Money, power,and influence are rewards only, not goals. Only winners reap the rewards, becausewinners focus on doing jobs right.

Some people will succeed in crossing the lake, taking shortcuts, but they neverlearn how to do jobs' right. People who had some success with shortcuts will always useshortcuts. If it worked once, it will work again, so they reason. For them, rewards will belimited and growth will not be possible because a shortcut is a loser.

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Learning to Make Quality Decisions

We need to find the correct path. With each step, we will learn how to completesmall projects. At the end, we will collect all the small accomplishments andcombine them into a successful achievement.

Knowing what path we are on, we can make quality decisions that will guide us toour goal. Others can help if they know what our goal is. We need to learn how to prevent problems. Problems are caused by a lack of

knowledge, not bad luck. Lack of knowledge destroys dreams, not money.

As leaders, we need to know how to bring the best out of people. No one knowswhat their true potential is until opportunity presents itself.

The rewards of success are money, power, and influence.

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Motivational Speakers

Emotional Reaction and Rhetoric Hype

Note: In the article below I exclude one-on-one sales people from my comments on

rhetoric hype. There are people who sell because they love it, and there are people in thesales force only for the money. For the latter, they may need emotional hype to keepgoing. People who are in a profession they love, don't need a steady diet of emotionalrhetoric, natural charisma does the selling.

A good motivational speaker is a pleasure to listen to and can inspire us to keeppushing when nothing seems to be happening. An occasional motivation seminar canmake us feel good and can produce positive results. On the other hand, it is not all roses;there is a dark side.

Emotional hype can become a trap.

We all want to feel we're on top of the world and motivational speakers can make

us feel we are there. After our first experience, we want to hear others, and each seems tohave the ability to send us to a new high. With a steady flow of motivational material,addiction is sure to follow. At this time, the passive follower becomes hooked; and haschanged his primary goal. The new goal, "seek and maintain an emotional high." Bymaintaining an emotional high, he feels his goals are just around the corner. All he has todo is maintain a vision, have positive attitudes and maintain that good feeling. His newgoal is emotional highs with his former goal as a tool to get there. An addict becomesdependent on motivational material to maintain this illusion and, in time, can't livewithout them.

The art of positive thinking will not replace required knowledge or the ability tomake right decisions.

Positive attitudes will provide persistence until knowledge and quality decisionskills are acquired.

Success is the result of knowledge, learning how to get it right.When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, it is reported that he tried a thousand

times before he found a way to burn a steel wire white hot that did not burn up. Athousand failures is not motivating and does not make one feel good. Back in his day,there was no such thing as a motivational speaker. So what kept him bouncing back fromrepeated failure? A desire to explore and discover the world he lived in, a desire to learn,and a desire to do the impossible. He loved the challenge and accepted the

disappointments. His belief that something could burn white hot and not burn up was thelaughing stock of the scientific world. This is a depressing feeling, not a feel-goodfeeling. The fact is, success is the result of bouncing back during times of discouragementwithout dependency on others. Thomas Edison used discouragement as a stepping-stoneto achievement. Each failure was a challenge to try harder.

If discouragement is the stepping-stone to success, then motivational speakersshould support depressing feelings. But then, who wants to hear about discouragement,something we experience frequently without outside help? The fact is, emotional hype

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sells. A steady diet of fee it produces wealth for the promoters. A steady f leads us into a false

nal hype other than ideas sound good.g good. Many people spend money

ers.

g.e

th

up, does not want change and will fight change if someone tried to dothin d withou anges.

W rour resistance to change becomes and the stronger our desire for greed becomes. We donot n embrace methodsthat v evelopment. Thisis not

risk,

ling-good does not produce winners, butlow of emotional hype is a cover-up that

sense of progresses. There is no creativity in emotioPeople don't remember ideas, they remember feelinand time getting an emotional high rather than trying ideas and taking risk. They lose

sight of their primary goal.Motivation is a complex subject and it is easy to go in the wrong direction. Some

dead-end paths to consider:

Everyone has a goal of more money, but few are willing to develop a plan,provide a service, or take risk to make it happen.

Money is not a goal; money is a reward for achieving a goal that provides aservice to oth

Goals of money (greed) become self-destructive. Money by itself is notmotivating; we always want more which leaves no sense of accomplishment.

Most people turn off their desire to learn after they acquire a professional skillthat meets basic needs. At that time, motivation is replaced with wishful thinkinThey dream but don't act with a hundred reasons why they can't act. Many replacaction with emotional hype.

We have all been in organizations where they tried to increase membership orincrease income above the normal with little results. They use emotional rhetoric, contesor games to motivate members into action. There is no analysis of current policy, whicmay be the source of their problems. They want to achieve more with the same policy.People as a gro

gs ifferently. At the same time, people are greedy; they want more of somethingt making any policy ch

hat is true for organizations is true for individuals. The older we get, the stronge

wa t to learn new skills that could bring the desired lifestyle, so wegi e the allusion of achieving results. Greed is in control, not self-d

the way winners are made. Winners continually analyze what they are doing rightand wrong and learn how to correct the wrong. They acquire knowledge by takingtying different ways to achieve the desired results. They learn to bounce back fromdiscouragement and failure without outside help.

If you love what you are doing, you are not dependent on others for motivation.BUT, an occasional motivational seminar can be extremely inspiring. Coupling this with

a learning process that's related to your goal, you will be a winner.

Some self-motivating goals:

Advancing in an organization. Each step is clear and is recognized by others.Recognition is a powerful motivating force.

Developing ideas. Creativity is a natural self motivator. We want to prove toourselves that we can do it.

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Adventure -- Exploring is learning more about the world we live in. Exploring is ahigh-powered learning environment.

Providing a service that others want and are willing to pay for. Seeking continual change and adapting to it. Very often, this is related to

achieving a goal, the

n going after another. This requires the desire to maintain acontinual learning environment. The result is bragging rights.

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How I made My Dreams Come True

M sitting in aclassroomthe

Amazomyself ld see the bow of

y sailboat plowing through the towering waves, heading toward the South Pacific. Icould see myself on a white sand beach chasing girls.

s

t

te

y

e

. No

g

y story begins in Summit, NJ, at the age of sixteen, where I amstarring out the window. Out of the first window I could see myself exploring

jungles of South America searching for gold, I could see myself drifting down the

n River on a raft, I could see monkeys swinging through the trees, I could seeas Tarzan swinging on a vine. Through the next window, I cou

m

Then BANG! The teacher'yardstick hitting my desk broughtme back to the real world wheresubjects did not relate to my interesand dreamers are related todummies. In a loud voice the teachersaid, "You are a failure! If you don'pay attention you will continue to ba failure!"

When the bell rang, instead ofgoing to the next class I walked outof school never to return. I was tiredof being called a failure. Right orwrong, I took charge of my future.When I left school, I carried thesingle most important element forsuccess... A DREAM. During the

next twenty years, every one of mteenage dreams came true.

You may be asking, "Howdoes one make their dreams comtrue?" There are three elements:

First - We must have adream that motivates us

one has ever achieved anything without a dream attached to a burning desire.

Second - We must learn how-to-learn. In school, we learn how to memorize or betaught. Learning how to learn frees our dependency on others for knowledge.

Third - We must learn from failure and learn how to bounce back from failure.No one ever succeed without failure. In the classroom, failure is a no-no.

In my early teens, I read the bookKon Tiki. This is a story about six Norwegianssailing a raft across the Pacific Ocean. Their adventure inspired my dream of duplicatintheir raft voyage. As a teenager with normal parents, a dream like this was consideredridiculous. Not only did friends and family not support my dream, they told me to getserious. But the Kon Tiki dream turned me on. I wanted to know more about the ocean

Bob preparing for a dive in the Locks of thePanama Canal.

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world and ho more booksand found ple

a

nFor example, every manmade object around us is thefailures. Consider the light bulb. Thomas Edison belihot and not burn up. A wild unrealistic dream? Everyone knows everything burns up in ashort time. A thousand failures later, Thomas Edison burnenever burned up. Continuous white heat creates light

dreamto be offered opportunity, and first to be promoted. Bigg topen. People without a dream are last to be hired, last to beoff in adream aener y;

attitude that bosses like and to which theybecome

W , mywild t

s

w it could be challenged. I went to the public library looking fornty.

During the next few years, I joined the Seas Scouts, read boating magazines,studied nautical books, and went to boat shows. To help understand seamanshiptechniques, I made model charts, buoys, and boats. With models, comprehension was

easy. Unknowingly, I was learning the art of learning how-to-learn self-education technique that would follow me the rest of my life, a technique that would bring mesuccess and make my wildest dreams come true.

At the age of nineteen, duringthe Korean War, I was in the MarineCorps and in Japan. On my first dayof duty an officer told me, "You area machinist and will be in charge ofthe machine shop." As he gave methe shop keys, he pointed to a trailer.In the Marine Corps, everything ison wheels. When I opened the doors,I had my first look ever at a machineshop. In the shop was one shortinstruction manual titled "How toRun a Lathe." When a job came in, Ifollowed the manual's instructions. Iwas surprised at my ability tocomplete assigned tasks. The MarineCorps experience launched mymachinist career. It also made me realize that learni

Bob swinginPanama

g on a vine in the jungles of

g how-to-learn is a powerful tool.result of someone's dream andeved something could burn white-

d a steel wire white hot that.

. They are the first to be hired, firstOpportunity is attracted to people with aer he dream the faster doors

promoted and first to be laid-force reduction. For non-dreamers, doors remain closed. WHY? People with act differently than non-dreamers. Dreamers develop an attitude that radiates

g they have a sense of purpose and meaning to their lives. Radiant energy is an

offer opportunity. This is how the impossibles possible.

hen I was discharged from the Marine Corps, I decided people were righteenage dream was ridicules. Real people do not drift across oceans on rafts. I am

now an adult, I should think and act like one. The raft dream was dead. For the next fiveyears my life went nowhere, my ambition, hope, dreams were gone. Something else waalso gone opportunity that came fast during my earlier years also dried up.

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One day I dusted off the Kon Tiki book. My dream jumped off the pages and cameto life. I said to myself, "I must find a way!" Two years later, I was in Hawaii and learnedhow t rs

exper

Daand information supplied by the Bishop

ea convinced me the double-hull theory was wrong.ach other

lem dians in the Darien Jungle. They said,

rned five computer languages and

n

did not let a wild teenage dream die.

he Polynesian people populated the Pacific Islands in dugout canoes 1,000 yeaago. My dream was changed from a raft to a dugout canoe. At this time, opportunitycame back and fast.

I helped crew a 36-footsailboat from Hawaii to California.This provided my ocean sailing

ience. Next, I was hired bythe Panama Canal Company,Panama. Soon, my supervisorasked me to attend hard-hat diverschool at company expense. Withthis skill, money was no longer aproblem.

A short time later, I wasliving on a beach in Tahiti buildinga 40-foot Polynesian double-hullboat namedLiki Tiki. The hullswere built by Choco Indians in thebuilt the boat according to popular theoryMuseum in Honolulu. Three days at sThe two hulls worked against e

Back in Panama, I took the prob"Outriggers is what works." I then succeed in sailing a 36-foot dugout canoe withoutriggers, namedLiki Tiki Too, from Panama, 5,000 miles, to Hawaii.

Opportunity never stopped. For the NavyUndersea Center Hawaii I help develop a two-manPlexiglas submarine. Moving back to the PanamaCanal Zone, I lea

rien Providence of Panama and shipped to Tahiti. I

and would soon breakup.

to the In

became supervisor of the computer department, Ibecame Captain of the Canal Zone's trainingschooner Chief Aptakisic on which we took agroup of teenagers to New York. My wife and Ispent five years sailing the South Pacific Ocean iour own 50-foot sail boat,Hunky-Dory, which Idesigned and self-built. Opportunity came my way

because I could educate myself, was motivated and

The above experiences are the results ofdeveloping a love to learn through interactive

projects and learning how to process knowledgeversus collecting knowledge.

Bob dredging for gold in the jungles of Panama

Btra

ob was captain of the Canal Zoneining schooner, Chief Aptakisic.

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"All men who have turne s had the chief hand intheir own r Scott

skills is a powerful skill in itself. This is the

irst astronauts were chosen, Chuck Yeager, the man who showed us how, wasisqualified because he did not have a college education. From this time on, self-educated

st

d out worth anything haeducation." -- Sir Walte

Dependency on self to developtool of super achievers.

Some History on Self-education

Before 1960, self-education was a highly desirable and acceptable form ofeducation. When the astronauts were chosen, the first requirement was a collegeeducation. This eliminated the man who made space flight possible, Chuck Yeager. Hisformal education was limited to high school. From that time on, society no longerrecognized self-educated people. Forty years later, it is becoming a lost art.

Man has always been able to educate himself without instructors. In third worldcountries, there are limited education opportunities self-education is the only way toacquire skills. Up until about 1960, a job applicant with self-education skills wasdesirable. Chuck Yeager was the first man to fly faster than sound, yet his formal

education was limited to high school. His skills helped us learn how to put man in space.When the fdpeople were not recognized on employment application forms. In the last 40 years, self-education has gone underground. It is still active, but is not recognized by society.

The Panama Canal

The Panama Canal Commission has always adapted advancing technology as soonas it was available. This may be tradition from the construction days. Because of thedemand for skilled employees in advancing technology and lack of formal trainingopportunity, the Commission has to rely on the self-educated. This was especially true

during the construction days when most of the workers came from Jamaica with almono formal education.

Mr. John F. Stevens, the chief engineer, did not have a grade school education. Heunderstood self-education concepts and implemented a leadership style that took fulladvantage of man's ability to educate himself. There is a saying:

" If employers treat their employees like engineers, they will th ink and actlike engineers. If they t reat them like helpers, they will think and act as

helpers."

The Panama Canal Commission treats blue-collar craftsmen like engineers. As a

result, they make decisions equal to that of college-educated engineers in the UnitedStates. In most parts of the US, blue-collar craftsmen are treated as helpers.

My experience

In 1980, the Panama Canal Commission installed timesharing computers in alloffices. (Timesharing was a typewriter controlled by a computer at a central location.There was no monitor, input and output was typed on rolled paper.). I was working as a

35


36/36

mreading about them.

computer. There was no softw s to learn BASIC computer

be useful in the office. A year later, IBM-PCse help and write your own software. It really

wasn' on the

rps,fficer told

me, "

e able

achinist when assigned to the office to operate the computer. My only experience was

My assignment was to write programs that would be useful in the office. There wasno instructor available; the only source of help was a small manual that came with the

are, so the first assignment wa

language, then design programs that wouldwere installed. The same policy, no outsid

t policy, there was no one available to help and there was no useful softwaremarket that met our needs. I retired 8 years later as supervisor of the computerdepartment.

I had a similar experience in 1954 when I was 19 years old, in the Marine Coduring the Korean War. I was sent to Japan. First day off the troop ship, an o

you are a machinist. You are also in charge of the machine shop." Using a smallmanual, I taught myself to be a machinist, which became my primary occupation.

During extended combat, there is no time for years of training. Teenagers ar

to learn skills in weeks, if not days, when under combat pressure. They are learning withhands-on in real word environments. It takes years to learn the same skills in classrooms.

My ability to educate myself is the secret that open the doors of opportunity.Number of years in the classroom may determine the ease of getting a job, but self-education skill determines the ability to advance.

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