These are not in any specific order of importance so keep that in mind. They are more of a comprehensive list of skills that when applied both individually and together they become very specific keys to unlocking amazing doors of opportunity and success. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THEM! Here are the 7 keys & advices to achieve success in life.

#1 Learn More About People Than You Do Your Product and You Will Be Unusually Successful.

Sounds pretty straight forward, but if you think about the fact that everything you do is sales, this will take on a whole new meaning.

If you are trying to get a friend to meet you for coffee… that is sales. If you are trying to get your kids to eat their veggies… that is sales. If you are trying to land a date… that is sales.

Now think about this… if someone is trying to get you to do something with them, why do you decide to do it? Especially when you’re eager to do it?…

Isn’t it ultimately because of what you will get out of it? Whether it is because you will enjoy your time with them… whether you will get a meal out of it… if it is just an excuse to get out of the house… if it is a chance to do something you’ve never done with somebody you like…

It doesn’t matter… YOU get something out of it and that is why you agreed to do it. YOU JUST GOT SOLD!

So… now that we understand this, we can use it as a VERY powerful tool. In the wrong hands and with the wrong intentions this can be very dangerous. With the right understanding and intentions, this is one of the most powerful tools you can use.

When you understand how people tick, you know how to get them to do something by giving them what they want… but you have to understand people. The moment we think that we know people, that is the moment we have shot ourselves in the foot! It is a constant learning process and we MUST keep that in mind!!!

It is NOT about manipulation.

It is about finding the problems and solving them to make money or getting success. We can’t understand the problems if we don’t understand the people. Our own problems are not always universal so to think and solve problems based on our own perspective makes us only able to convince ourselves of anything.

Here is the key to remember… If you are in management, you have to “sell” your associates and your team on what you want or need them to do. There are a hundred ways to do it, but only ONE that breeds success.

If your team is always feeling pounded and pushed they will never look to go the extra mile or catch the things that have been overlooked and take care of them. They are always going to be willing to go elsewhere in the hopes of “being treated like they are worth it.”

However, if your team feels valued and cared for… noticed and encouraged… then they will almost always be more than happy to reach a little farther than you have asked, just to prove to you that your belief in them is not unfounded. They will always go that little extra just for your approval. They will also be more willing to work as a TEAM to get everything done that needs to be done.

When people believe they HAVE value, they are more than willing to GIVE value.

It doesn’t matter if the value that you need back from them is performance as your team or employees or as clients and customers that you need to purchase a product or service.

The only way to make people feel like they have value is to know them and to notice the value. That cannot be done if they are not studied! If you do not understand how people tick, you cannot understand how to make them feel valued.

The more you know about people the more successful you will become simply because you will be helping them to solve real problems and they in turn will help you to solve your problems. It is a win/win situation!

Learn this skill and you will find yourself becoming unusually successful in everything you do. There is a crazy side effect to it as well… it becomes addictive. All of the sudden your realize that by helping people, you are helping yourself!!!

So go start to learn about people. You will have to learn to look through the lenses of new and different perspectives, put yourself in their shoes for just a moment. Recognize what their strengths are because of what they have been through. Log those things in your memory. Recognize what causes the behaviors. Ask people about who they are, what they do, and why they do it. Then shut up and LISTEN and take mental notes!!!!

It doesn’t matter if you are a stay at home mom, a corporate professional, a McDonalds hamburger flipper, or working from home… whatever you do… this skill alone will help you make great strides in any direction you choose! And cause others to rally around you and your dreams, vision and journey.

So there is the first on the list… Go have fun starting to explore, listen, and learn PEOPLE! We have a couple of great resources that will help you in this process if you care to have some extra training.

The first recommendation is to read How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. It is one of the most accurate and widely used resources on this topic. Read it… then read it again!!!

#2 Personal Growth Produces Unusually Great Success

This one may or may not make a lot of sense and can very easily be one key that SEEMS to be taking you backward more than forward at times, but it is one of the most powerful tools available to anyone looking to advance their lives, their business, their career, their relationships and their dreams.

What is personal growth?

Personal growth is the constant study of any topic that can and will improve your skill set for anything you do in life. That is the simplest definition.

The idea is that we continue to learn things on a daily basis anyway, we might as well stay aware of what we are learning and direct it in a fashion that is going to benefit us the most.

Would you rather end the day with a better understanding of why your favorite list of TV shows is or isn’t up for awards or would you rather end the day with a better understanding on how to execute a marketing strategy that will move your work from home business to the next level and take you one step closer to living your dream lifestyle?

Society tries to sell us that we need “decompress” or “down time” when we are not working. Their idea of down time is movies, TV, video games, and other things that serve no purpose other than to dumb us out and brain wash us into an “I need” type of materialistic buying cycle. It’s all a money game and has nothing to do with your actual personal well-being.

The truth is that as humans we are designed to continue learning and growing and when we are consciously aware of what we are learning and direct that the way we want to go, our minds do amazing things. Before long we become very knowledgeable and creative individuals who are Extremely capable at WHATEVER we decide to do. In that area of study, success becomes more than possible… it becomes inevitable.

The vast majority of society does not pay much attention to what they are taking in as learning and knowledge much less choose to direct their learning path. So those few who DO decide to do so find themselves in a position of unusually great success.

There is one think to keep in mind with personal growth. It rarely looks in the moment like what it will become eventually. In other words… it can SEEM very discouraging at times.

When we begin to learn things we often find that the more we learn the less we know and with the wrong perspective that can put some people on the depression train. Remember… the more questions something causes you to ask, the more you are growing and the closer your success is getting.

So go LEARN! Find an area that you want to grow and start learning. Find an area in your life that you know is a weakness and start learning. Find an area that you want to become an expert and start learning.

It doesn’t matter if you work from home, have a traditional career or are looking for help with relationships or anything else. This one area of skill is something that millionaires the world over have used and continue to use to keep them moving forward and growing themselves as well as their bank accounts. Do NOT underestimate the power of this skill! And YES… learning very much IS a skill!!!

So GO! GO LEARN SOMETHING NEW!!! Go be the BEST that you can be!

#3 The Proof is In the Pudding

We’ve all heard it. We all know it. People can talk a good talk but until they walk the walk they are nothing more than hot air… the proof is in the pudding, right?

Well… there is something a little deeper in the pudding that is VERY relevant to success if we will pay close attention.

Here is the deal, in this day and age pudding… not metaphorical, but REAL pudding… is usually something we either get from a prepackaged cup or make nearly instantly by mixing up some mild and the pudding mix. For the sake of this example we are going to pretend that prepackaged pudding doesn’t even exist.

In “the olden days” pudding used to be something that was made from a list of ingredients measured out and prepared a certain way. Even now, “instant” pudding still requires measuring out ingredients and stirring it up and letting it sit. The point to all of it is that there is a list of instructions… or a RECIPE how to make it. If we follow the recipe, we get pudding. If we don’t… well we get something, but not pudding.

You might be wondering what in the heck does this have to do with working from home, a career, a family, relationships, success or the price of rice in China for that matter… right?

It’s simple. Success.

Success in ANYTHING has a specific recipe to be followed. If you talk to anyone who is successful in something they will be able to give you the ingredients that are important to their success, the “amount” to use, and how to mix it all up in order to get what you want. They know the Recipe.

It doesn’t matter if it is relationships, a career in the corporate world, living the work from home life or serving the needy, there is Always a Recipe for Success.

So the proof is in the pudding. If you want to know if someone is successful in an area, look at the pudding. Is it real pudding or is it something really strange looking (kind of like a science experiment) that they are just Calling Pudding… or is it really pudding?

We can look at the same thing in our own lives. Do we have pudding or something… well… not so much like pudding?

Here is the really cool part about pudding (success)… There are some REALLY AMAZING recipes out there. And they are just that… RECIPES!

Which means they are something that is proven to produce the desired outcome and they have specific ingredients and steps to be taken to get there.

So if we want to find success in something, all we have to do is find the recipe for the success we want and follow it. It really IS that simple!

It is actually a key that a lot of millionaires don’t speak a lot of, or will play down because in reality it is hard to find someone who is willing to simply follow the directions to get what they want. Far too many times we decide we want to do something, but we want to do it our way then we get frustrated when we don’t get the outcome that we wanted.
Success is truly as simple as following the directions.

When you have an opportunity in front of you to get a hold of a recipe for success, grab hold of it and then have the maturity to simply follow directions. It is not uncommon to have to figure out how to use the measuring cup and put everything together in the right order with the proper type of mixing to get the desired outcome… and it may be a little slow the first time through. But the second time is easier. The third time is even easier. The fourth time you might even have the amounts memorized. The fifth time you know exactly how to put it all together.

Eventually, you have it memorized and it is quick and easy to “Whip Up.” Isn’t that how you would like success to be? That easy?

Just follow the directions.

Every good chef first started by learning all of the basic recipes and having them become second nature before they began to experiment and create their own. That comes in time with success as well. But success must first start by following the recipe and learning it by heart.

So… as long as we have the maturity to put our own ideas aside until we first master the recipe, success is a Definite outcome. That is a wonderful relief to many of us who know what it is like to try and try and try and keep ending up with the science experiment. All we have to do is follow the instructions!!

It is so simple it is easily underestimated and overlooked, but it is a HUGE key to success in career, relationships, working from home, and even going to school.

So go find the recipes you want and follow the directions. Remember that the first time or two there are still learning curves and it takes practice to perfect it, but as long as you follow the recipe you WILL get what you set out to make!!!

#4 The Truth of Focus

How many times have we heard to maintain our focus in order to get where we want to go? How many times to athletes get told, taught, hounded and pounded with focus?

The truth is that Focus is a huge factor in success of any kind. Any actively growing millionaire will tell you that they maintain and protect their focus at all times.

There is a couple of aspects to focus that are not often spoken of yet are crucial to fully understand the power of focus.

The most important factor is to realize that what we focus on we get good at. If we focus on hitting the ball, we will hit it. If we focus on a skill, we get good at it. If we focus on success, we get good at it. If we focus on joy, we get good at being joyful.

There is a little bit of a catch with this… we have to also realize that we can have the same result if we focus on the negative things. If we focus on being sad, we will be more sad. If we focus on procrastination we will procrastinate more. If we focus on being frustrated, we will be more frustrated.

It doesn’t matter what it is that we focus on… we get good at it. It is always important to be aware of what the majority of our thoughts are. What we think of the most is what we are focusing on. That is what we will get!!!

That brings me to one of the most overlooked and subtle aspects of focus… Our thoughts. In order to be able to discover and keep track of our focus, we must be aware of our thoughts.

Our thoughts are not something we need to judge… as in… “this one is good and that one is bad.” They ARE, however something to take notice of and use as a tool to direct our lives.

In learning focus… start with taking a few days to simply keep inventory of your thoughts and thought patterns. That will help you to determine what your focus currently is and how to re-direct it to where you want it to be.

Always be cognizant of where your focus is to make sure that you are not accidentally sabotaging yourself and your efforts by focusing on the wrong things. Focus on the what you have accomplished that IS in the direction you want. Focus on the steps you ARE taking to achieve your dreams. Focus on what you need to learn to continue going in this direction.

Along with focus is the idea that what you feed will flourish and what you starve will die. That is perfect for this because if you focus on what you want to get good at and what you CAN do, then all of the other crap that used to hold you back because it used to be what you focused on will no longer have the food it needs to survive… and will die. The things you are focusing on will get stronger and bigger the more you focus on them.

Laser focus is definitely a skill and one that is completely master-able by anybody willing to practice it enough to master it! Mastering it includes being able to use it in any area that you need it. This is true for working from home, careers, relationships, health, joy, and anything else you can think of.

So get started today! Keep a journal for a few days if you need to. Take inventory of your thoughts and then determine your focus!

#5 Go Against The Flow

There is a profound concept called the 98 & 2% concept. It says that 98% of the people in any given situation will be unsuccessful and 2% will be successful. Before you go getting frustrated and give up… read the rest of this. You wouldn’t be reading it if you were destined to fail!!! OK?

Let’s look at something that most people can understand at least a little bit. Let’s look at the work from home life.

98% of the people that decide they want to live the work from home life will not succeed at it and 2% will. Why? There are a couple of factors at work but probably the biggest is perspective. The 2% crowd doesn’t think like everyone else. The 2% crowd has a different way of looking at things. They were not necessarily born with this perspective, but have learned it and refined it.

Here is an example of what we’re talking about. The general train of thought in modern society is to graduate from high school, go to college, get a good education and then get a good job that will hopefully keep you on the right path to success of some sort (or at least financially keep your head above water) for the rest of your life.

That is the 98% mentality. The 2% mentality doesn’t necessarily have a problem with going to school but believes much more that specialized training in the desired field that one wishes to be successful at is MUCH more valuable than a traditional college education.

The average person that follows the standard college course of life comes out of college with a degree in something that they most likely will never use or a field they may never have the chance to work in, and typically are strapped with student loans that are as large or larger than a home mortgage. Great way to “start your life”, right? Not so much!!!

They go on to find some sort of job… anything they can, usually… that will pay the bills and keep a little food in their belly until they can find and land a job in their chosen field even though they have little to no experience. Unfortunately many of them end up giving up on their “chosen field” and just going with some sort of job that they can hopefully work their way up from the bottom because it’s the experience that gets them where they need to go anyway.

The 2% mentality looks at all of this and realizes that because experience and actual usable skill is the important part, they figure out the best way to get the experience and skill without wasting time and money on education that probably isn’t necessary or usable. They have just bypassed, not only wasted time and money, but undue discouragement, frustration, and let down.

The 2% mentality looks at general spending habits of society and realizes that while the majority is spending their money as fast as they can get it on a lot of stuff that isn’t truly essential to staying alive rather than spending and investing… they realize that it is in the spending and investing that they will be able to be financially free when the majority will not. Once they are financially free… THEN they can spend a little extra cash on the new big TV, nicer car or bigger house.

Even with those endeavoring to live the work from home life, 98 and 2% are very real. 98% will try to act like they have what it takes and continue to live their lives just like the rest of the 98% of the world that will be dead or dead broke by the age of 65. Only 2% of those who work from home will do what it takes to make the personal changes in their life, character, habits, skill and perspective to achieve the levels of success that 2% achieve.

Success in ANYTHING is NOT discriminatory!!! Success IS available to anyone who is willing to do what it takes… even if that means going against the flow of the majority and doing things different!

We had a great friend and mentor tell us to look at what everyone else was doing and do the exact opposite. Guess what… SHE WAS RIGHT!!! That little phrase has kept us going in the right direction and learning a new level of awareness to what it takes to be successful. And we use it EVERY DAY to INCREASE the levels of our SUCCESS!!!

YOU CAN TOO!!!

#6 Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should

If you take any time at all to study people who are successful you will notice several things. One of the more prominent things is that they tend to be Brilliant in ways that often society will not call brilliant. Think about it… Einstein’s mother was told that he was stupid and would never make anything of himself. Michael Jordan was cut from the basketball team.

There is a list a mile long of people who “shouldn’t have made it” but not only made it, but made it bigger than most people even dream is possible.

So the first thing to consider is that it doesn’t necessarily take book smarts to be successful. It doesn’t necessarily take a high IQ to be successful. What it takes more than anything is the ability to dream big and CHOOSE to go after everything you dream is possible.

That being said… as you dream and discover all of the amazingness that you are capable of, you will also discover a lot of situations that you CAN take care of. You will find “opportunities” in front of you to stretch your muscles and use your skills. They will begin to become VERY abundant.

As you continue to study successful people you will begin to notice that they are VERY capable of doing SO MUCH… yet they aren’t always doing it.

Why?

Because successful people have learned that doing everything they Can do doesn’t necessarily get them to the outcome they want. They have learned that just because they Can do something doesn’t mean they should.

It is rather common for people to get so busy trying to prove all they can do that they take on everything they are “capable” of and end up neglecting the things they Should do to get them to where they want to go. All of the “Can Do’s” become distractions and rabbit trails leading away from their ultimate goal. Unfortunately many times they never find their way back to the path that leads to their dreams and the success they truly long for.

So here is the low down on this. You don’t have to “test right” in order to have what it takes to be successful. It doesn’t matter if you work from home, have a traditional career, or are creating your own way… you ALREADY have what you need to be successful at YOUR dreams! The key is learning the skills that help you get there and get there faster. Anybody can learn these skills.

So be very aware of what you decide to take on. Be protective and selective with your dreams and goals. Get involved only with things that will move you in the right direction, help you continue to grow your skills and help others while you’re at it.

Take a lesson from the successful people in the world. Choose wisely! Don’t get distracted and if you do get distracted for a moment… correct it and come back to the main goal.

Like we said… You already have the dreams you need to be successful… now it just takes skill. Remember, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should!!!

No, go figure out what you are and are not going to do. Are you going to be successful living the work from home life? Are you going to be successful in your traditional career? Are you going to be a successful freelancer? What is it? Pick it and stick with it!!!

#7 The Real 80/20 Rule

We’ve all heard of some kind of 80/20 rule. If you’ve been in business or sales for any length of time, you’ve heard it said that 80% of your cash flow comes from 20% of the work you do. Or that 20% of the work you do is the work that actually produces results… the other 80% does not.

Those are VERY true, but there is a spin to the 80/20 rule that most successful people live by and understand and use as the fuel to keep them seeing greater and greater success.

It is simply this… 20% of success is a matter of what you do, your skills, who you know, how you do what you do, and all of the “how to” and “what to” statements. 80% of all success comes down to simply doing them.

The key to understanding this is to realize that 80% of success is simply taking action. Then taking action again. And then taking action again.

Success has more to do with taking constant action than it does with anything else.

The skills required to be successful can be learned. The contacts needed to be successful in your chosen career, work from home lifestyle, or whatever can all be acquired. The tools you need to be successful can be acquired. There is one thing that cannot. It must be produced.

That one thing… again… is constant and consistent action.

A boat requires action to move. Either wind or motor. If you are the once responsible to make sure there is either wind or that the motor is running, then you can control the direction and destination of the boat… You are therefore successful in getting it to do what you want it to do.

Without action it cannot turn, move forward or do anything. It never gets anywhere.

Success is the same way. You are responsible for providing the wind and that wind is action… constant action. If you will make up your mind and resolve to provide constant action in the direction of your goals, you WILL see success.

The really successful people of this world know that and use it!!! It is not always in the amount of time that we want it to be, but it WILL happen and without it, success never manifests.

Success simply cannot exist without action.

It really is that simple. Only 20% of success in anything is about the logistics. 80% however, IS about action.

So do you want to be successful at your work from home career? Your traditional career? Your invention career? Your home based business? What about relationships… it applies to those too? And Parenting?

Think about and apply THIS 80/20 rule… and you WILL see success!