The Keys to Building Lasting Success and Creating
the Life You Desire

I came to the realization many years ago that I was making my life much more difficult than it needed to be. I was swimming against the current instead of using it to get where I wanted to go. After years of struggle, I finally learned that there are some basic concepts that, if followed, can improve one’s entire life experience, building lasting success. I only wish I had been introduced to these principles earlier.

Growing up, I never knew exactly what I wanted to do. The only thing I was clear about is that I wanted to make a lot of money. When I finished college, I set a goal for myself to become a millionaire by age 30. I became consumed with this goal. I started a property maintenance/construction company to accomplish it. The business was building nicely within a very short time. I began taking on bigger jobs and growing my staff. At its peak, I had about 20 employees.

I got myself (my ego) so wrapped up in the business that it began to define who I thought I was. The challenge grew as I became reliant on other people, who in many cases, would not follow through. I began to worry about them not showing up on jobs. I worried about cost overruns, and ultimately, I worried about my business failing. Ironically, things were actually going quite well at the time, though I couldn’t see that. I had a constant fear of what could go wrong. The stress that came as a result of fearing failure became so consuming that I would get out of bed at 5:00 a.m. and literally head straight to the bathroom to throw up. I had focused all my energy on not failing—and the stress began taking its toll on my body.

My lesson from years of running my business that way is that if you focus your energy consistently on an outcome, you will actually bring it into being.

That is exactly what happened to me in the end. My business ultimately fell apart as I worried right past it. The amazing part is that I couldn’t even admit to myself that I had failed. To top things off, as the business (my entire world, as I comprehended it) was falling apart, my marriage of two years was disintegrating as well.

Soon after the marriage ended and the business dissolved, I decided on a complete life change. I had gone to school for finance and had some contacts in the money management industry. I was lucky enough to land a job at a top money management firm in Boston. There is nothing better than being young, single, and living in Boston except possibly being young, single, wealthy, and living in Boston. At that point wealth was definitely not part of the equation. My biggest challenge was figuring out where I was going out every night. Newly single, my biggest expense was bar bills, racked up through my relentless pursuit of the almighty female.

My new job began with an intense education on the financial markets, specifically how they pertained to the world of asset management. Once you were up to speed technically, the proving ground began. If you paid your dues and excelled, bigger things could happen. And they did. One day, after my second year with the firm, my boss’s boss asked me if I would prefer to run Mutual Fund distribution for New York City or Florida.

I chose New York. Two months later I was living on the beach in Florida. So much for my boss accepting my input.

This new job was all about building long-term relationships with the most successful financial advisors in Florida. I began to become very interested in what made certain people more successful than others within the same industry. This study became my passion, which I continue to this day (17 years as of this writing). During this same period, I began to read every book on personal growth and building lasting success I could get my hands on.

What I discovered is that, on the surface, there were no detectable common traits among successful people. Sure they all worked hard, but they all seemed to achieve success through different means. As I began to dig deeper though, I found that there were some commonalities, but they were not detectable from the conversations I was having. Most people were not consciously aware of what they were doing to bring success about. It eventually brought me to examine how they think, as opposed to what they say.

One characteristic I quickly discovered is that before virtually every one of these people was ever successful, they inherently knew and had no doubt that it would happen. They approached situations with their desired outcome in mind. The key, I began to discover, was to start from the end and work backwards. In other words, approach any task with the desired outcome in mind.

The biggest catalyst to positive change in my life came from my current wife, Stacy. She introduced me to a completely new way of looking at life. It began with the study of how things work universally. By this, I mean that she seemed to understand what I will call the technology of the universe, and the extent of what we as humans are capable of accomplishing.

Through the immersion in quantum physics and personal growth, combined with my obsession of uncovering the drivers of lasting success, a picture began to come together. Today, I am a happily married father of two wonderful little girls. I have an amazing extended family, an incredibly supportive array of friends, many of whom go back to my early childhood. I am fortunate to have the financial wherewithal combined with a supportive spouse that allow me to follow my passions in life. Those passions include travel, rock ’n’ roll, and skiing.

I am absolutely convinced that my life situation would not have developed as it has without the insights I have gained over the last 16 years. I am fortunate to have worked my way into a terrific career with one of the world’s top asset management firms. To date, I have achieved every career goal I have set for myself and have become a senior executive in the area of corporate development for a leading Wall Street firm. I am one of the lucky few who actually look forward to going to work every day. Each day is completely different and presents new challenges. I currently live in Palm Beach, Florida and spend every possible moment in my second home in Vail Valley, Colorado.

At the end of the day, though, I am still a pretty simple guy. The difference between me now and the guy that was throwing up from stress is that I have woken up to see how things work universally. I have integrated these concepts into my life—and now I want to share them with others. I want you to enjoy the same lasting success and personal happiness that I have been able to achieve.

If you are wondering if it’s possible for you to have the type of life I now have, the answer is YES. I am absolutely convinced that through discipline and subtle redirection of one’s thoughts, anyone can absolutely, positively build lasting success and create the life they want to live.

There are many wonderful books out there that cover some of the same concepts I will be discussing. I have sifted through a tremendous number of these books and, combined with my own experiences and ideas, I have created what I believe to be a concise, impactful primer that anyone can read and learn from. My goal has been to provide a balanced approach that speaks to “regular” people who may not be familiar with these life-changing concepts, as well as to depict a straightforward and actionable path to building lasting success for those who have been exposed to this information but have yet to incorporate it into their life.

Ultimately, I am trying to create a mainstream book that identifies the factors that contribute to the lasting success of the most advanced among us. You will work on concepts like:

• Articulating your life’s desires.
• Absorbing knowledge about the creation process.
• The powerful combination of action and discipline.
• Building knowledge-based ritualized activities to capture and fulfill your desires.
• The steps associated with making your desires a reality.

Note that nothing you read in this book will be difficult to accomplish, yet nothing is easy. Practicing and implementing what I will share with you does not need to be time consuming, but it will be if you choose it to be so. The concepts are very straightforward and the work involved is not complicated. But you need to absorb the concepts and keep doing the work continuously. Discipline is one of the most important factors toward achievement.

While I recognize that most of us don’t live in a monastery or meditate eight hours a day, the issue is, how do we take the principles that the most evolved people among us live by and apply them to our lives as they do? After all, we still have to deal with our work environment, take care of our families, and live the so-called rat race. But if the rat took a few minutes every day to step off the wheel, he would probably see things in a much different prospective.

For that reason, I have aimed to make this book as easy to assimilate as possible. As I read the seemingly endless array of personal development books in preparation for this writing, I realized that for the vast majority of them, I had a difficult time staying engaged. I decided that I needed a way to not only keep the reader interested in the subject matter, but I also needed to attract people who would not normally be open to these types of books. I attempted to accomplish this by building a story and then creating the personal development ideas within the confines of the story.

We have all read books that inspired us. Most often we grasp the power of the text as we read them. Despite our greatest intentions, within a short period of time we resume life as usual, ultimately failing to integrate the material that inspired us into our daily life. My challenge for the reader in creating the action steps is to get you to act on the inspiration you feel. At the end of each chapter in the second part of the book, you will see a series of action steps. If you are inspired by the message and decide to make the commitment to change, follow the steps. These steps are aimed at helping you integrate the subject matter into your daily life. Think of each action step as a way for you to integrate a particular concept into your life. The goal of the action steps are to provide you with routines to follow that can maximize your chance of building lasting success in a particular area.

My hope is that these ideas will wake you up to how life works universally and provide you not only with the tools to create your desired life situation, but also the mechanics of how to make them work for you. My wish is that this book gives you a practical path toward directing your life toward your desires. If you do all I set forth in this book, you will, at minimum, create a blueprint toward achieving your desired life situation. So I invite you to sit back with an open mind and begin building the lasting success and life you desire.