From the Inside Out

“The trou­ble with so many of us is that we under­es­ti­mate the power of sim­plic­ity. We have a ten­dency it seems to over com­pli­cate our lives and for­get what’s impor­tant and what’s not. We tend to mis­take move­ment for achieve­ment. We tend to focus on activ­i­ties instead of results. As the pace of life con­tin­ues to race along in the out­side world, we for­get that we have the power to con­trol our lives regard­less of what’s going on out­side.“
– Robert Stuberg

“First, all rela­tion­ships are with your­self — and some­times they involve other peo­ple. Sec­ond, the most impor­tant rela­tion­ship in your life — the one you have, like it or not, until the day you die — is with your­self.“
– Peter McWilliams

Remem­ber that your inner self is your great­est source of all that feeds you along the road of life. It’s what builds you as a per­son. It’s your val­ues, your pri­or­i­ties, your mind, and espe­cially your peace of mind. Most impor­tant, it’s your self-​​image. Since your image is a mere reflec­tion of your self-​​image, then what goes on out­side of you is an indi­ca­tion of what goes on inside.

As Denis Wait­ley in The Psy­chol­ogy Of Win­ning once wrote, “What is impressed on the inside is expressed on the out­side.” That is why, through­out this book, I often refer to self-​​esteem as the key deter­mi­nant in your suc­cess. Inex­tri­ca­bly, it affects who you are, what you do, and the peo­ple around you. You can never do what you love or love what you do if you don’t love your­self first­hand. Rumi once wrote, “Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”

In addi­tion, you will love oth­ers to the exact same degree you love your­self. Rela­tion­ships are a mir­ror reflec­tion of the rela­tion­ship you have with your­self. There­fore, the more aligned you are, the bet­ter your rela­tion­ships will be.

Stephen Covey once wrote, “Peo­ple who are con­stantly repress­ing, not tran­scend­ing feel­ings toward a higher mean­ing find that it affects the qual­ity of their rela­tion­ships with others.”

The way you treat oth­ers is directly pro­por­tional to the way you treat your­self, and the rela­tion­ships you main­tain reflect the qual­ity of the rela­tion­ship you main­tain with your­self. If your rela­tion­ships are less than desir­able, then the prob­lem lies within you — not outside.

In essence, if you ignore oth­ers, you ignore the fact that peo­ple con­tribute to your qual­ity of life. As the cliché goes, “Nobody on their deathbed wished they spent more time at the office.” The level of suc­cess you achieve in your life is wholly depen­dent on the rela­tion­ship you have with the peo­ple you know, serve, and love. And that, my friend, all starts with you.

For instance, if wealth is one of your val­ues, remem­ber that you can not buy hap­pi­ness let alone friend­ship. Stu­art Wilde once said, “Peo­ple are the cus­to­di­ans of the world’s wealth. If you want to be wealthy, you’ve got to be nice to people.”

Money is but an energy, and it is not and should never be a goal in itself. There­fore, if you neglect oth­ers in the process of reach­ing your income goals, it is because you are neglect­ing your­self. You may become rich but you can also become poor in other ways.

If you don’t believe me, you should take a quick trip to your library. You will find that there are many rich men and women who, although being suc­cess­ful in a mate­r­ial sense, have failed in many other ways. They’ve failed in their busi­nesses, in their part­ner­ships, in their mar­riages, with their peers, with their kids, and even with them­selves through suicide.

Bob Proc­tor, in the intro­duc­tion of his book Born to be Rich, pro­vides some very inter­est­ing sta­tis­tics. To make a long story short, he listed the names of many of the world’s great­est self-​​made mil­lion­aires who have com­mit­ted sui­cide, became men­tally insane or incom­pe­tent, were killed, or died due to an over-​​consumption of drugs or alcohol.

Jim Rohn said, “Don’t become wealthy at the expense of oth­ers but rather at the ser­vice of oth­ers.” Wealth, there­fore, is but a byprod­uct of love. If you seek to accu­mu­late wealth, do so through doing what you love and not by set­ting it as a goal in itself.

In other words, wealth is a value and not a goal. Love your­self and you will love what you do as well as other peo­ple. In the end, suc­cess, hap­pi­ness, wealth, and many other won­der­ful things will come to you in unex­pected ways.

About the Author

Last 5 Posts By Michel Fortin

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