Archive for April, 2006

Have you ever gone through the tedious process of developing a mission statement? You put words and phrases together and brainstorm them. You move the words around and bring in other phrases. It is often a collaborative project and the result is sometimes good and other times just a politically correct jumble of words.

I have worked for many months trying to develop a mission statement for my life and also for this blog. Many words have come and gone, and I even logged into Steven Covey’s website and tried his Mission Statement builder. The result has always been less than perfect… always a compromise, and never something that I could say “that’s it!” The phrase “Success Begins Today” is as close as I have come to a completed statement.

I can picture in my mind different pictures of success, the champion winning a race, the dial on a scale indicating weight loss, and the chancellor handing a student a diploma. All of those pictures indicate a successful outcome. But how do you define it? I never have come up with a worded definintion that I feel comfortable with for “Success”, much less a mission statement.

That is until today…

On the wrapper of my Starbucks coffee was the word “Succedaneum,” which is listed as the winning word from the 2001 national spelling bee. This caught my eye with the succed part and I had to know what it meant. I looked it up and I found the definition is…

Succedaneum: a person or thing that takes or can take the place of another.

In other words a “substitute.” This really hit me in a profound way. I have spent many years battling with negative attitudes and those “nattering nabobs of negativity” that constantly light on my shoulder and whisper in my ear little sayings like… You can’t do that, you’re a failure, do it tomorrow etc.

It became so clear… this blog can be a “substitute” for negativity and failure. The authors and speakers we discuss here are Succedaneous (acting as a succedaneum, employed as a substitute for another.) or in common terms a “substitute” for the voices of failure and negativity that inhabit the airwaves and written word of our modern society.

When we discuss books like “Integrity” by Henry Cloud or the John Maxwell classic, “Becoming a Person of Influence“, the message is positive and helpful. Books like this have had a profound impact on my life and are clearly better than watching the evening news or the latest sitcom. The links on this blog point to many positive and extremely helpful websites that are uplifting and clearly a substitute for much of the negativity found on the web today.

Succedaneous is what I want for my life. The ability to be different and offer a “substitute” for the destructive attitudes and divisiveness of our current society. This is not always easy to accomplish but it is a goal to work for. This one word is a powerful mission statement in itself and one of the best I’ve found.

I’ve also discovered some succedaneous habits that are relatively easy to implement one month at a time in the 12habits program. When you can substitute a positive habit for a negative one, great things can happen.

With the Easter season upon I am thankful for the Savior that came 2000 years ago as a succedaneum for my sin. Who died on a cross in my place so I didn’t have to. I am forever grateful.

As I was sitting in a Toastmasters meeting the other night the call went out for people to compete in a “Table Topics” contest. The moderator went around the room asking for volunteers. One after another the audience members signed up… some reluctantly. When the moderator got to one person, the cries of “no” came up loud and clear.

The experience reminded me of the new Staples commercials where people are able to get out of tough places by just pressing an “Easy” button. I could visualize a large Easy Button at the front of the room… If you don’t want to speak… just press the button. It is amazing to me how many “Easy” buttons we have in our modern societies.

The question becomes… should you press the “Easy” button? After all who wouldn’t want to press it? Life should be easy. We shouldn’t be bothered by things that might cause us a little pain or embarrassment. But is the “Easy” way out always the best? Are we missing growth opportunities and life experiences that are really beneficial?

Ask yourself a simple question… where do you grow the most? Is it doing “easy” things or is the challenging and difficult tasks that bring real fulfillment? Is it doing something where you might fail… where you may be less than perfect… where you might be embarrassed… that brings learning?

Author John Maxwell in his book, Failing Forward, offers this inspirational advice, “The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.”  This has been so true in my life and in hindsight I’m thankful there wasn’t an easy button in many situations.

In Toastmasters and other organizations the persons who rise to the top are those that refuse to take the easy way out. They stick it out and drive through it. Next time you are facing a tough challenge… just say “NO” to the easy button!

April 1st marks the one year anniversary of Success Begins Today. It has been an incredible journey with many hills and valleys along the way. I am grateful to all of you who visit here regularly. Your comments and feedback make life much richer and more exciting. I would like to say thank you to the bloggers who inspired me to get into this daily ritual. I have learned so much and met so many new friends. Thank you!

A little over a year ago I had picked up the book “Getting Things Done”, by David Allen. The book had a profound impact on my perception of time management and I started to do web searches on the topic. I found the site 43Folders by Merlin Mann and a little hack called the “Hipster PDA“… I was hooked. I noticed his site was called a “Blog”, and I found it easy to navigate and comment on. I picked up an Audio Book on blogging and the rest they say is… history.

I followed links on 43folders and one blog led to the next. I found the personal productivity site of Steve Pavlina and learned a lot of techniques for becoming more productive. His writing style and willingness to try things out made his site a daily read. A link on his site led me to “Slacker Manager“, by Brendon Connelley. I found that Bren had a unique outlook on life and his site had some of the most fascinating articles that I have ever read. I started to comment and get involved with this phenomenon called blogging.

From Bren’s site I found an amazing world of creativity and curiosity in Dwayne Melancon’s “Genuine Curiosity“. This site was full of wonderful treasures and gadgets. I bookmarked the site and followed his links to the island paradise known as Talking Story. Author and personal coach Rosa Say had created an amazing world of Hawaiian words and sayings and related them to business management. Her Ho’ohana community was rich and diverse and I found myself immersed in the collaborative atmosphere.

Her community links became the foundation of an inspiration to start blogging. The more I explored, the more I wanted to create my own destination. A place where I could share some of my ideas and experiences with others.

I finally took the plunge on April Fools day, 2005. Success Begins Today was born. A simple Wordpress blog with a domain name that was derived from a powerful speech that I had experienced. I started writing about things that I found interesting and soon people were commenting and the blog induction was complete.

The rest of the year was a blur with many new blogs coming online and traffic steadily increasing. I soon found many interesting bloggers such as Keith Robinson, Troy Worman, and Jason Womack. Their sites led to other interesting online authors such as Phil Gerbyshak, Scott Hodge, and Erik Vossman. Yaro Starak has been a helpful friend through the journey with many site tips and tricks and the introduction into the amazing world of SEO.

The year was capped off by a worldwide book signing for Rosa Say with bloggers all over the world sending Rosa’s book back and forth for signatures. The book was battered and broken when she finally received it but the collaboration with so many people was an experience I will never forget.

As the year turned to 2006 a couple of posts on this site went ballistic being picked up by Lifehacker and Seth Godin. It was amazing to me that there was so much interest in 12 Habits and Marshmallow Madness but such is the world of blogging… You never know what people may find interesting.

I looked at the site stats and found that we had over 142,000 visits for the year and are now averaging pretty close to 1000 visits per day. This is pretty amazing coming from 150 visits for the first month. Blogging has changed my life and I want to say Thank You to all of you who stop by from time to time.

Continued success to all of you!

Cheers!

John