Tag: dreams

What are the keys to success?

Posted on by philipdodson

So I was reading something on Facebook listing the keys to success and that got me thinking about what I would put in a such a list. Not that I disagreed with the poster’s views, it’s just I felt it missed a few things that were for me important.

Also, I am not saying I’m right either, after all success should be a personal thing and not what it looks like for others.

So here goes, here is my take on this and in no particular order of importance, other than the first two for me are essential:

1. Know your values

This is something that I now realise has to be the bedrock of everything in life and if you don’t know what your values are, then success will be hard to come by. Often when something doesn’t feel right, but we’re not sure why, it’s because something is conflicting with our values. It won’t go away and the moment we start to compromise our values, then things start to go wrong.

So not just knowing your values, but living by them. Then decisions in almost everything become straight-forward.

2. Be happy

Happiness leads to success not the other way round. You can choose to be happy or not. It is a mindset that we control and if you have a positive mindset and choose happiness, then success will come in whatever you choose to do.

There is a great book on this called ‘The Happiness Advantage’ by Shawn Achor.

3. Help others

Part of helping us to feel good and therefore happy, is when we help others. It is important to help others without an agenda too. Random acts of kindness have a massive impact on personal well-being and happiness.

4. Believe & never give up

Belief in what you do or your dream is essential for success. It seems an obvious thing to say, but that belief has to be cast iron and with that you have to keep going, whatever shit comes your way on the journey. Never ever give up hope or the belief.

5. Commitment

Once you have your dream and you are full of belief, then you have to work at it, you have to sacrifice things, you have to be prepared to be disciplined and do whatever work is needed to make that dream a reality.

6. Look after yourself

This may again seem an obvious one, but it is important to not only look after yourself physically, but even more critical is to look after your mental well-being. So eat the right stuff, get your sleep, take breaks, do exercise and take time for yourself.

Make sure that you allow time for fun, meditation, and time spent when you switch off from the day to day.

You can only work at warp factor 9 for so long, no matter who you are and spending time on you is vital for success.

For example, just taking 5-10 minutes a day to meditate will have a huge impact on mental and physical health. People who meditate are much happier too.

Taking time to write your thoughts down each day helps unwind and work out challenges. I use 750words.com

7. Collaborate

It is important to realise that you are not brilliant at everything and as long as the others you work with share your values, then collaborating with other people/businesses is a critical element in being successful.

You can then concentrate on what you are best at and as mate Brad Burton says ‘there is no cavalry you have to build your own’.

8. Dare to be great

To many people worry about what the critics might say, don’t. Step into the ‘ring’ and don’t worry about the people sitting on the sidelines, as they didn’t have the courage to step into the ‘ring’ and take the knocks.

There is a great book by Brene Brown called ‘Daring Greatly’ that is a definite read for learning about success.

9. Take the small steps

Once you have a vision of your dream, it is then important to break it all down into manageable steps, that if taken daily with discipline, will lead you to where you want to go. As Mao said ‘A journey of a thousand miles starts with one small step’.

These daily steps are what creates the compound effect that will catapult you and will build the momentum that will lead to reaching your goals.

There is another great book by Darren Hardy called ‘The Compound Effect’ which illustrates this concept brilliantly.

10. Have no fears

Regret is what comes when we allow fears to dominate us and stop us from action. Fears can be overcome, but regrets are very hard to remove. So easier said than done, but don’t fear failure, as mistakes are what makes us stronger.

The mistakes we make, we would make again, even if we could go back in time, as every decision we make is based on our knowledge/experience gained up to the point we make that decision. So it is futile to worry about these things, just move on from mistakes and learn for the future.

11. Enjoy

Again might seem a very obvious thing to put, but we are going to have today and therefore it is better to enjoy the day, have fun and cherish the moments that day brings. Shit will happen some days, but it is how you react to it that will shape your life and success.

12. Surround yourself with the right people

If you are to be a success, you must choose and surround yourself with positive people who have shared values and who will stick by you whatever. This is so important.

As Debbie Huxton my coach talks about ‘remove toxic relationships’.

Do you know what? We’ve been fed a crock of shit

Posted on by philipdodson

Do you know what? We’ve all been fed a big crock of shit.

The fact is that since the 1950s until now we’ve been sold the dream, but the dream is only for a very tiny few and in reality that dream is not all that it’s cracked up to be.

We’ve all been brought up to go to school, university – get good grades, then get a career, get promoted, get more money, get a bigger house, bigger car, a bigger TV, more expensive this and that.

We work for others all our lives, work as hard as we can, to consume more and more.

We then get to a certain age and retire. Next stop – death.

Well I’m out. That is no longer what a growing number of people worldwide want, yet the system still peddles that outdated nonsense. Why? Because it can’t survive if we don’t all do as we are told and keep consuming and working hard to follow that ‘dream’.

The sum total of our lives will be a chronological route march from one materialistic milestone to the next, with zero time for people and nothing more than a pile of credit card receipts and a heap of dissatisfaction that some other person has bigger and better stuff than us.

The only winners in this endless cycle of consumption are the select few – that top 1%, who globally have all the real wealth and power. Take a look at this if you need convincing more:





However, there is a choice and now is the time to act. It is the time to change and turn our backs and bypass this old school world that has shafted most of us all our lives.

Thanks to the internet and social media, we can now ignore that old world and pursue the dreams that we have and live a life that is not measured in shallow terms such as money and material goods. We can collaborate with others, help others, share ideas and work for the things that really matter in life – happiness and people.

If you choose the path of worshipping things and money, then you will be forever chasing that unfulfilling dream that only keeps a very select few holding all the power, many of whom are not happy anyway.

It’s time to start living the life that you want and not what others want you to live. Don’t work 9-5 for somebody else’s dream.

Start your own thing, chase your dream and share and work with others to achieve theirs too. If we share our resources with others, i.e. share our knowledge capital, then this will start to take away the power that the top 1% holds.

The next decade can be one of the most defining periods in history – a chance to use the power of the internet, social media, collaboration and really embrace the sharing economy and the change that is possible.

Become part of it, become part of the connected generation, embrace the ideas of helping others, understand abundance and measure prosperity in terms of people not money.

We stand at the fork in the path, one way is real change, where finally the old order is challenged and people are truly put first. The other is to continue along the path of consumerism, capitalism, where you will be a drone forever, unsatisfied, chasing a dream that is a crock of shit.