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Lesson #5: “Success seems to be connected to action.”
Article Overview: Marriott never stood still or took the time to reflect on his successes. After all, there was no time to indulge in such things. “Successful people keep moving,” he would say. “They make mistakes, but they never quit.”
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Free Download - J. Willard Marriott Quotes By John Willard Marriott |
Lesson #5: “Success seems to be connected to action.”
Marriott never stood still or took the time to reflect on his successes. After all, there was no time to indulge in such things. “Successful people keep moving,” he would say. “They make mistakes, but they never quit.”
From the time Marriott opened his first business, until the time he died 58 years later, he barely knew what it was to take a moment’s rest. Whether he was buying up new plots of land and expanding locations, or perfecting his operations and equipment, Marriott lived for his business. That is not to say that he never knew failure. Marriott experienced his fair share of setbacks. But what set Marriott apart from his competitors was that he kept on going.
“I have always felt that America is the land of unlimited opportunities for those who will ‘pay the price,’” he once said. After all, “Good timber does not grow with ease,” he said. “The stronger the wind, the stronger the trees.” Marriott was one of those willing to pay the price.
For Marriott, staying on the move meant never resting until a job was finished, and finished right. Even on the home front, Marriott made sure that the lessons he learned as a boy were instilled in his own children. He made his son polish his shoes every Sunday so that they would be ready to wear for church.
One Saturday, Marriott’s son tried to rigorously scrub the gummy substance off of his father’s shoes, which had been sitting there for over a week. It took him hours to do it, but he knew it would be worth his father’s approval after a gruelling inspection. For the Marriott family, perfection was one notch below the acceptable result.
Marriott expected more than perfection, and settled for nothing less. “Not one operation of the Marriott Corporation should be substandard,” he said. ‘If it is, the company is injured if not corrected immediately and responsible management obtained.”
Marriott was a firm believer that a company that spills coffee on 10 percent of its customers could never be a successful company, no matter what the other 90 percent of customers thought of its coffee. Similarly, an 80 percent positive customer response was not something to be happy about.
Beyond the business, Marriott also insisted on perfection in his personal life. “All through the years, I’ve seen bad habits destroy brilliant, talented and fine men and women,” he said. “So I know that the basis of my success is good habits and good character.”
Marriott was always on the move to improve, to be the best he could be, and build the best business he could build. From concept to follow through, Marriott was always in it for the long haul. He may not have achieved success let alone perfection on his first try, or on his second, but it was always the goal that he was striving for, and that he tried to convey to his employees, customers, and family.
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- Success = Thinking (Head) + Heart (Feeling / Interest) + Hand (doing/ action).
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- How to get the results you want now?
Success Strategies and Action Steps I have used are:
The Power of Choice
Where you are at this present moment, is exactly perfect from the choices you have made. If you want to be somewhere else, you have to decide clearly what that is (your goal/outcome) and create action steps to achieve this.
The Power of Focus
The book "The Power of Focus" by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Les Hewitt, is one of my treasures in my Entrepreneur Library. If you focus on what you want versus what you do not want, your conscious and sub-conscious mind will direct attention to this. The movie, What the Bleep, Down the Rabbit Hole, explains this in detail about quantum physics and what we create in our lives.
The Power of Commitment
This is not about commitment to others. The first step is the commitment, your word, you make to yourself. Accountability and responsibility are additional success strategies and ingredients to creating the success, defined by you, that you want. The commitment to others reflects your integrity, your word and the team you work with. Co-workers, clients, yoru family, friends and community.
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S pecific & self-directed
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Re: Best way to start a business?
- It really just comes down to decision, action and persistence.
You can spend a lifetime thinking about doing something, and researching it, to decide if it is the right action to take.
Or you can make a decision about something you want to achieve, take action and be persistent. Make a plan of action, and adjust it as you learn more.
An online business is something you should jump into straight away. The time it takes to start a new website is minutes, so there is not much of a barrier to entry for you to start a basic website and learn.
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My favorite advice for taking action comes from Tony Robbins:
“A real decision is measured by the fact that you’ve taken a new action. If there’s no action, you haven’t truly decided… The most important thing you can do to achieve your goals is to make sure that as soon as you set them, you immediately begin to create momentum. The most important rules that I ever adopted to help me in achieving my goals were those I learned from a very successful man who taught me to first write down the goal, and then to never leave the site of setting a goal without first taking some form of positive action toward its attainment.”
If you've truly decided to make 2012 a successful year for you, don't wait until Sunday. Start today, even if it's a small step. Good luck!
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