I accidentally came across a way to tell whether someone is broke. It works every time.

Why would you want to know - whether someone's broke - in the first place?

Most people can easily think of a situation or two. Usually we only find out who’s swimming naked when the tide goes out. With my accidental method, no need to wait for the tide to change.

It works real simple, too. Everybody conveniently falls into one of two groups of people. You live your life either inside or outside of your comfort zone. For anyone living inside their comfort zone - the overwhelming majority of us - all you have to find out is whether the person is comfortable with his or her life.

Most people are not ... but "would like to be".  This is your hint. Anyone uncomfortable with the money in their life, yet merely wishing to be comfortable,  is broke.

It never fails. Because the truth is, success in business is not a stroll in the park.

Merely wanting to be comfortable ain't enough. Even if at first you get a head start - it won't last. If you are willing to live only inside your comfort zone, your life will be uncomfortable. Sooner or later. I know ... only too well :-)

But if you're willing to do what's uncomfortable, life will be easy.

Successful people live in fear just like everybody else, but they don't let that stop them. They don't base their decisions on what's comfortable, easy and convenient. Successful people make it a habit to "get over" their comfort zone. How else to discover what you hardly know the limits of? Successful people have learned that not doing the thing that you’re afraid will hurt you, will in the long run hurt infinitely worse than doing it.

Venturing outside your comfort zone sounds more difficult than it is. You already know this. The first time you embark on something new it usually feels uncomfortable. Correct or right? Then the more you do it, the more comfortable it becomes and your comfort zone expands. Just the way it is.

Sometimes it involves having to learn something new. If it does, keep in mind you don’t learn so that you can then do. That’s an anxiety reaction and an avoidance behavior. You learn by doing, or you’ll never learn at all. Or worse.

Responsibility, responsibility - life's full of it, enough already, give me a break! Read about it, too?! Why should I? It is important? You better believe it! Your ability to respond - responsibility - plays a  key role in shaping your life and your destiny. It is so important that all by itself it can make the difference between success and failure.

What IS Response-Ability, Anyway?

Your personal ability, or lack thereof, to respond to life - to broken relationships, broken teeth, canceled flights, winning the lottery, landing your dream job, finding the love of your life, ice cream and bad dreams - determines how you perceive life and therefore, how you handle the challenges and opportunities that come with it. Let's say your ability to respond is one foot tall and the challenge or opportunity in front of you is six feet tall, you would back off, versus the other way around you would take it in stride. Whether the size of the ability and of the obstacle is real or not is immaterial - your perception alone counts. You get the drift.

For many years, the ability to respond was even believed to be the key factor between success and failure. In the meantime we know conclusively it is not your response-ability, but your self-image. But the two are closely linked and enhancing one automatically enhances the other, and vice versa, so it makes sense to look at the two together. Increasing your self-image and your response-ability is easy to do, and can be done throughout life, regardless of age. Here's how.

5 Easy Steps To Grow Your Ability To Respond

Step # 1: Some attitudes and emotions will diminish your ability to respond. They are: helplessness, self-doubt, shame, guilt, apathy, regret, fear and anger. (It doesn't mean these are "bad" emotions, only that if entertained for prolonged or excessive periods of time, or even constantly, they weaken your ability to respond).  Move away from these emotions.

Step # 2: Another set of attitudes and emotions will strengthen your ability to respond to life. They are: courage, resolve, acceptance, intelligence, love, joy and peace. Move towards these emotions. Invite them in, entertain them as you would friends.

Step # 3: Stop blaming others. Be responsible. And don't blame yourself, either. Simply do not see setbacks in life as reflecting poorly on yourself or others. Rather, see the setbacks and successes for what they are - events limited in size and duration - "these too shall pass."

Step # 4: Do not hope for smaller problems, rather work towards growing bigger than your challenges. Step 5 happens naturally, as a by-product of steps 1 to 4, however you can accelerate the process. Remember past successes, regardless of how insignificant they may appear to you know. Remember their significance at the time.

Step # 5: Cease seeing life as alternatively fair and unfair. It is not what life is all about, and doing it anyway is, well, pointless. People in judgment of life are typically concerned about life's unfairness only when they are at the short end of the stick, and more often than not, the perceived unfairness only serves them as an excuse for acting irresponsibly - for blaming others for the “bad” things in their life. To their children they explain that life is not fair and everyone ends up believing it, making  it a self-fulfilling prophesy. But irresponsibility – the unwillingness to exercise one’s ability to respond – eats a hole in the soul of the person who adopts it and over time it spirals out of control. Response-ability is not about how we would respond if we were someone else or if we had someone else's life or if things were different. Responsibility is about how we respond to the hand we have been dealt.

Relevant Quotes

• Learn to wish that everything should come to pass exactly as it does. - Epictetus
• Don't wish it was easier, wish you were better. Don't wish for less problems, wish for more skills. Don't wish for less challenge, wish for more wisdom. - Jim Rohn
  
• In dreams begin responsibilities. - W.B. Yeats
• History can be written in a simple little formula: Challenge, Response. - Arnold Toynbee
• The price of greatness is responsibility. - Sir Winston Churchill
• It is our responsibilities, not ourselves, that we should take seriously. - Sir Peter Ustinov
• An idea isn't responsible for the people who believe in it. - Don Marquis

1. A Positive Mental Attitude (PMA)
While PMA is number one among the seven magnificent of success, strictly speaking you can be successful with a negative mental attitude also. Just look around you or, if need be, catch the nooze on teevee. See the "success" of the merchants of death, hate and violence and of those who prey on the fallen and weak. Success, after all, depends on how you define it. However, a PMA is absolutely required if you want success that’s enduring, satisfying to you, the people around you and the world at large. A definition of PMA, if needed, is easily be found among the large number of books and articles out there. The importance about PMA is it  precedes success. If you wait to have success first and then acquire a PMA, you risk to be waiting forever, regardless of success happening or not. Also, just as success doesn't bring about PMA, PMA by and of itself won’t bring about success. Success requires - in addition to PMA - positive doing, too. With PMA alone, without positive doing you’d be hoping to climb a ladder that has no rungs.

2. Know What (Only) You Know
Know what success tastes, looks and feels like - to you. To be successful by other peoples’ criteria will only cause you to stress and be unhappy. If you're not sure about yourself, begin the process of getting to know yourself better by looking into a mirror and asking who you are. The only person permitted to answer is you. Then move on to ask yourself what success is in each of your main dimensions: physical/health, family, career, financial, adventure, variety, love, connection, relationships, growth, contribution - whatever may apply to you. To help with this step, a method often used is called Wheel of Life. If you need one, just google it. Many examples available on the internet for free. In knowing what only you know, remember the reason most people fail to get what they want, simply put, is they don’t know what they want. Don’t let it happen to you. Have faith. It is never too early or too late to be, or to become, who you might have been.

3. Focus On Outcomes - Always
Make it a habit of separating means from ends. Then always focus on the ends. What's the difference and why is it important? Means are about the What, How and When. Means are mostly about what you're doing. By contrast, Ends are about the Why. Ends are about how you will feel "the morning after," after the doing is done. If you focus not only on what you are doing, but also on how you are feeling,  you massively increase the chances of achieving your desired outcome.  To illustrate the point: I volunteer with an organization that delivers meals to the homes of people who cannot prepare their own. The other day the distribution center, also staffed by volunteers, was late in preparing the packages. One volunteer among us got angry at the delay. I doubt her reason to volunteer was to get angry. The reason for volunteering is to make yourself and others feel good - else, why bother?! That even a volunteer can get easily distracted from the most basic purpose of volunteering, shows the importance of always keeping in mind how you are feeling, too.

4. Learn From Every Experience
Make learning - from every experience, good and bad - a lifelong habit. The reason most people stop learning is for fear of looking ridiculous in the eyes of others. As adults, when we grab a full glass of water with nonchalance, absent-minded, automatically, we tend to forget we all learned to drink by means of two-handed, fool-proof sippy cups (or equivalent). It's a good thing we’re naturally adopting a learning attitude during the phase of our lives when we must learn everything. It's an equally good thing to maintain a learning attitude in adulthood later on in life, too. Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly until you learn to do it well. Adults who remember, do well.

5. Build On Your Strengths
Much of society is about making you believe there’s something missing in your life. It’s easier to sell you something when you believe you must have it. It doesn’t mean it’s wrong, it's just the way it is. The point, building on your strengths is a challenge in a world where you’re constantly reminded of your weaknesses. It’s a myth to believe that as you grow, your personality changes. The opposite is true. As you grow, if you grow, you become more of who you are intended to be. To get more meaning, passion and success into your life, build on what invigorates you (indicator of your strengths), and stay away from what drains you (indicator of your weaknesses).

6. Get Outside Of Your Comfort Zone
If your goal now is to be comfortable, chances are you’ll end up very uncomfortable. By contrast, if your goal now is to be successful, chances are you’ll end up very comfortable. To be successful required preparedness to do whatever it takes - inside and outside of your comfort zone. You become successful by adopting the habit of doing the things unsuccessful people have the habit of avoid doing. You may not always like the things that need doing yourself, yet success demands getting on and doing them, regardless of how you feel. The movie Slumdog Millionaire contains a scene where, to reach his goal, a boy must jump into and get through, literally, a pile of shit. So he does. I’m not suggesting you try it at home, but if it's success you want, know clearly what success means, to you, and be prepared for ... whatever it takes.

7. Jump
Success requires the willingness to jump. Not just the ability, the willingness. Once you have your mind made up and your vision is clear, many decisions are already made. At this point there must be no more double-guessing yourself, no room for hesitation. There’s risk in letting go. Without it there’s no success. Between the fear of failing and the promise of success, fear is often the stronger of the two. In these situations, the only safety consists in deliberately jumping. Seven is not some magical number that guarantees success. However, it's a manageable number - a good number to get started. Wishing you fun and success on the journey!

Article first published in Khabar Magazine, July 2009