Scott Robert Alexander.com

Like an algebra equation, success can, theoretically,  be worked out on paper.  Thousands of people start out each year convinced that they have the ultimate million dollar idea.  On paper it looks great.  Things start out with a bang, but eventually the equation doesn’t work out.  What started out with such mathematical certainty leaves people broke, discouraged and jaded.  Something was left out of the equation.

Success is like a recipe.  You can have all the necessary ingredients like goals, plans, money and a computer.  You put it all together just like the plan says and yet the souffle refuses to rise, the cookies taste horrible and you spend the evening over a TV dinner contemplating the unpleasant foreverness of a job.

How frustrating to have everything you need for almost guaranteed success and it ends up a failure.  Geez, you were always talking positive: even when you were feeling down.  You kept a list of all your goals in order of priority.  How many self-help books did you read?   Think about all those weekend seminars you attended.  They got you so excited that you couldn’t sleep.  But you caught up on your sleep when you got home and by Tuesday, your motivational battery was dead.

What motivational speakers never mention is something that we cannot help you with.  We want to be invited back, and admitting that we can’t make your success equation balance does not make us a good candidate to be next year’s keynote speaker in Hawaii.

Lots of motivational speakers preach the obvious stuff like setting goals, keeping a positive attitude and getting out of bed in the morning.  People who really dig will discover techniques like visualization, dressing for success, and opening up a bank account.  They will have 4-color business cards printed, quit their job and establish a presence on the Internet.  Then it is down to “Business R Us”   for a brand new desk.  They digest a steady stream of positive books and in about four months they are using their new desk to scan the classifieds for a new job.

The one ingredient that we cannot give to you is DESIRE.  Desire mixed with all the other ingredients will make your souffle rise.  Your success equation will work out.  But there is no place to buy desire.  Now you’ve got a beautiful, mahagony desk that you watch TV from.  It is people with desire who are changing the world!  People with desire can become a success without the desk.  People with desire will make the souffle rise without an oven!

The Rolling Stones nailed it when they sang “You can’t always get what you want, but you get what you need.”  Fan your flame of desire.  Realize that you can have anything you want, live the life you dream of and accomplish anything you can imagine, but it starts with a burning desire.  No desire?  That is what TV is for.  Go watch it.

If you have the desire, you are on your way.  My advance congratulations on your success.  Keep charging!!!  Scott Alexander

Desire is the magic ingredient.

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Copyright 2009 by Scott Alexander