How To Make Desire Even More Powerful

Do you ever wonder how incredibly successful people influence things that they inevitably go their way? Now that’s power! What is one of the many attributes that sets them apart from all the rest? Before these super success magnates achieved stellar status they were no different from all the rest, really. In fact, a lot of them started from nothing. Remember Mr. Barnes? All they invariably had was the persistent desire to achieve what they wanted and then turned their desire into something tangible. They made things happen. But were their desires ordinary desires at the beginning? Not at all! Their desires were huge desires. In fact, their desires have become their obsession. Their goals or desires were so exact and vivid in their heads that they could almost touch it. (From here on I will be using the terms desire and goal interchangeably.) These are the super successful people’s attributes that set them apart from people who merely dreamed – they had a definite and strong desire to reach their goals. The exactness and strength of any desire are what made people act. Just how exact and strong is your desire to compel you to really willfully act upon it?

The brain works towards its most current dominant thought

Just how exact and burning is your desire or your goal? Let’s take a look at a classic example based on the book The Silva Mind Control Method of Mental Dynamics by Jose Silva and Burt Goldman which I will recount here in my own terms.

Suppose it’s a hot summer afternoon and you’re thirsty but you are seated comfortably on your lazy boy and you’re in the middle of watching a very exciting game on TV. I’d bet you wouldn’t so much as move an inch to get a glass of cool, refreshing water from the fridge a couple of feet away from you. Now in this example the goal is pretty much clear – a glass of ice-cold water. But you put off taking one because a more urgent need is at hand – not wanting to miss a moment of the game you’ve been waiting. The latter desire is greater than the former. But suppose we intensify the desire by describing how bad your thirst for water was. Suppose it’s the same time of the day. You’re watching the same game. But your throat is so parched as if a pail of hot dry sand from the Sahara has been poured into your mouth. Now, that’s intense, isn’t it? Screw the game! This time I’d bet that because your thirst is so bad you’d crash trough walls to get that coveted glass of ice-cold refreshing water, right?

So, you see, a strong and urgent desire is key to action.

How do you blow up or strengthen your desire to motivate you to act?

Begin with the end in mind. That’s what Stephen Covey taught as one of the seven habits of highly effective people. I couldn’t agree more. Every action starts with a goal. So now you have a goal that you’d want to achieve, how do you strengthen your desire to motivate yourself to act? Here’s how.

• Above all, know specifically what you want. A few years back a friend of mine who sells life insurance told me that when he was just starting out his goal was to buy his first car out of selling life insurance in six months! Six months! He kept at it and in five months and 21 days he bought his first car.
• Write down your goal because you could sidetrack. If you want a car in six months, write it down and write down the model, make and color of the car. Write down specifically how your goal looks like.
• Create mental and visual pictures of your goal. Make it a perfect mental and visual picture. Another life insurance agent who, at her first year in selling life insurance, wanted to make it to the convention for top producing agents to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, which was just a couple of months ahead. To keep her eyes on the goal, she downloaded pictures of Las Vegas and set them as wallpaper on her laptop. She stared at those pictures each day. Eventually, she made it to the convention. You could do this mentally as well. But first, write down on a piece of paper your goal. Each day for a couple of minutes (at least 10 minutes is best) go to your room, close your eyes and create mental pictures of, say for example again, a car. See yourself standing next to your coveted car. Imagine touching its shinning red hood. Imagine getting inside, feeling everything inside it. Make it vivid. Make it alive. (With this exercise I always experience my heart racing and my palms sweating in anticipation of achieving my goal. I suppose I’ve successfully created mental pictures that my body start to feel weird as if I am actually experiencing my goal.)
• Go out of your way and experience the actual goal. Here’s another story of a very successful sales manager. When he was just starting out all he wanted was to buy a nice house in a posh neighborhood. Once a week, he’d borrow a car from a friend, drive to his dream neighborhood with his wife and he would actually walk around the neighborhood and get inside one of the model houses. He actually experienced his goal. After closing several sales he got the coveted house in that same neighborhood and his own car.
• Write down your daily, weekly and monthly action plans to achieve your goal and keep at it! Write down a detailed plan of execution. For example, the only means by which you can achieve your goal is to sell more of whatever you are selling to buy your first car, plan how many, say for example, life insurance policies must you sell each day, each week, each month to earn the net commission you need to buy the car. Write down how many people you need to see in order to get the number of sales you need to close to attain your goal. Remember, not planning at all is planning to fail.
• Don’t procrastinate! Start right away! As soon as you have set down your plans execute them right away. The blacksmith does not strike the iron when it’s cold. You could loose your enthusiasm if you put off executing your plans. (More on enthusiasm later.) In the immortal words of Nike - “Just do it.” And do it now!
• Focus! Each day go back to your written plans, cut-out pictures and mental visions of your goal and contemplate about it at least twice a day to keep that flaming desire burning intensely. Think about it vividly at least 10 minutes a day. Dream about it. Always make your desire white hot! Don’t let it cool down!
  

I urge you to read again and again these very helpful tips on how to intensify any desire and put them to use right away. You can be an overnight sensation in your endeavor for all you know. If not, expect to become a hit within 100 days!

For more on intensifying and creating vivid mental pictures of your desires read The Silva Mind Control Method of Mental Dynamics by Jose Silva and Burt Goldman.

Up next, we’ll take a look at a mental state that if added to desire will turn you into a human dynamo ready to turn you into an overnight sensation.

Use This Power To Make Things Happen

Dream girl, dream boy, dream house, dream job, dream car, dream vacation, dream wedding…I can go on with a list of dreams forever. Whatever it is that we dream of and no matter how many or how little those dreams are the most pressing problem for almost everyone is how to achieve those dreams that they often times drop out at the third stride upon seeing how long and tedious the journey would be towards achieving them. “I can’t become a company president.” “I can’t get a job. I don’t have a college degree.” “I can’t swim.” “I can’t sell.” The world is full of it. Ironically, what these objections really mean are the opposite – “I want to become a company president.” “I want a good job.” “I want to swim the ocean.” “I want to sell something.” It’s so sad that just as our enthusiasm start to build up as we contemplate about our dreams or goals, potential hindrances get in the way almost instantly.

Yes, the desire to get what we want in life has always been there with us. But the question really is “Just how big and definite is that desire?” Is the desire huge and definite enough to influence us to really, really, really go for it despite the obstacles? Just how much do you want to translate your desire into reality?

To follow, without halt, one’s aim: There's the secret of success. - Ana Pavlova

Desire is the seat of all power. It’s the ultimate key to personal success. With desire

• wars were waged to conquer a coveted land or a coveted seat in the monarchy or government
• people set out to build empires
• successful people make things happen

To illustrate just how powerful desire is let me recount in my own words an inspiring story about a man who desired to work with Thomas Edison based on the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

Edwin C. Barnes was, in the words of Thomas Edison himself “…like an ordinary Tramp.” Barnes was a commoner with a common desire to work with a prominent person. But what set him apart from people who merely desired was that his desire was definite. It was clear to him what he wanted. He didn’t want to work for Edison – he wanted to work with him. But before he set out to achieve his goal two adversaries stood in his way. First, he did not know Edison nor did Edison know him. Second, Barnes did not have enough money to pay for the train that would take him to Orange, New Jersey where Edison was at the time. But did these difficulties discourage Barnes to carry out his desire? No. He did set out to meet Edison and worked with him, eventually. You see, at first, although Edison saw that Barnes had made up his mind to stand by until he succeeded and that he gave him the opportunity to get what he asked for, Barnes worked for Edison for a minimum wage. Yet, nothing stopped Barnes in achieving the coveted goal of working with Edison. He persisted until opportunity presented itself one day and Barnes, on the prowl, seized it instantaneously! After Edison perfected the Edison Dictating Machine, his salesmen did not warm up to it. Barnes saw gold when everyone else saw crap. He knew he could sell the machine. And sell he did with passion and great enthusiasm, keeping an eye on his goal. He sold it so successfully that Edison gave him a contract of distributorship with the entire US his for the taking! His business association with Edison not only made him wealthy, he inevitably achieved his goal of working with Edison.

With a clear and persistent desire Barnes got what he wanted despite the many hindrances that could have dispirited him at first step. He turned his desire into a reality. He made things happen! Do you think you could do the same? Don’t you dare think that Barnes’ success story is like nothing else. You know so well as much as I do that the world is full of such stories. Now, sit for a while and know exactly what you want. Make it clear and make it specific.

Strong desire is an essential motivation to all successful people. If desire makes things happen for many successful people why shouldn’t it make things happen for you? Because unlike Mr. Barnes, our desires most of the time are not definite and burning enough.

What is it that you really so strongly and definitely desire?

To learn more about how to realize your potential, I urge you to read Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. It’s one of the all-time best sellers out that there that has helped countless of super achievers make it to the top of the game.

Up next we’ll uncover how to blow up any desire and make it definite enough to launch a personal mission to even take on the world.

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Charlemagne's Main

About nine years ago (guess my age, but that’s not the point here) someone asked me about how I got my name. He asked me whether I knew its origin and its meaning. “Well, here we go again. Do I have to get this each time I introduce myself?” I thought with a little resentment. Of course I know everything about my name. With confidence I told him that I knew the origin of my name (that my dad just picked it up from a dictionary the night I was born because it sounded nice) and that I knew its meaning. I told him that Charlemagne means Charles the Great. Whereupon, he smiled and simply said that one statement that hit me like nothing else, “You should live up to your name.” What he said floored me. It struck me hard that since then I pondered upon it each time I remember those words. No one told me that before. It gets me each time. He sounded like he was commanding me to really “live up” to my name as if my life hinges on my name.

Ever since I can remember I’ve been asked about my name a million times before and have been even asked how to pronounce it. “That’s Shar-le-main, and, no, it’s not a girl’s name.” Darn! Until that time I was so proud of my name. I knew its meaning and even knew its proper pronunciation even before pre-school. But I never consciously knew what it really meant until that instance. But after that incident, I can honestly say that I wish I had a different name like Paul or James or John or any other common name not attributed to or that literally means greatness. Not that I hated my name. I love every letter of it. But I’m just a regular guy and now I’m not sure if I should still have this name. Since then I’ve introduced myself as just Charlie.

Yup, I’m just a regular guy. I’m not hugely successful (although I’ve had a taste of some modest successes). I’m a regular person who spends most of his day slaving away for someone else waiting for the 15th and the 30th, listens to regular pop music, watches regular primetime TV shows and regular movies that everyone else were watching and goes to Church regularly (if you count it as something a regular person does regularly). I’m just a regular person who owns a regular email account. Although it was 10 years ago today that I first used the Internet I remain oblivious to the many changes going on in it (not really). I could easily blend in on any crowd on any given occasion. But mostly, I’m introverted but not perverted. And like most regular guys, I’m someone who’s fascinated about many a great thing that I will accumulate into this single blog which I call Charlemagne’s Main.

So, if I’m just a regular guy, what’s the point of this blog?

I’m not hugely successful. That’s why if there’s anything that I like to talk and read about with awe, passion and enthusiasm, it’s about other people’s successes (and failures and missed opportunities for success). I am forever inspired to read and talk about people who built empires and amassed wealth like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Warren Buffet, Peter Lynch, Bill Gates, Frank Bettger, Ben Franklin, Robert Kyosaki and, yes, the Trump! And then some who established stellar fame like, John Lennon, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, J K Rowling and of course the immortal Fab Four commonly known as The Beatles. These names have become synonymous to legendary success that anyone who is familiar with them can’t help but reflect about these names with both awe and reverence or with hysterical response. Dare to challenge their historical significance and you’ll have to challenge inevitably the mountains of books written about them!

These men and women’s lives and other people’s success stories are the elusive Holy Grail to many people. But just as scores of unfortunate souls including me remain naïve of how these people became successful in their endeavor, thousands upon thousands have already uncovered and picked up their secrets, well on their way or are already enjoying success in all life’s facets. And because of this I am starting this blog to continuously learn more from these people as I read and write about them.

So, why care about my blog and about what I say?

It’s because this is OUR journey together. While I will not be trying to reinvent any wheel here or start a revolution or perhaps try to reform time-honored ideas, I am merely going to discuss about

• other people’s achievements
• some insights about topics like how to make money and anything about our jobs
• personal success and development
• motivation
• improving inter-personal relationships
• some of my two cents worth mainly based on time-tested success building concepts
• some current events perhaps
  

A word of caution here, though; don’t listen to me. I do not claim to be a success coach nor do I claim that the ideas and lessons underscored here are original. I may of course include some personal thoughts based on personal experiences and studies. But please, listen to the experts and learn from the stories that I’ll be quoting here! And this is not just about success with money, this is about success in all life’s aspects.

And since this is OUR journey together, I encourage you to participate, comment and share something of value to us and I promise you that we will learn together. I can think of this as my personal journal for reference on how to become successful or to keep abreast with the times OR you can think of this as your own.

To start our journey, in my next post we’ll discuss about the seat of all power. No, we are not going to be religious or sacrilegious about this one. We’ll simply discuss about that one thing to start this all.

Let the journey begin.