At age 6, Stone was hawking newspapers on the streets of Chicago to help his widowed mother pay the rent. He had his own newsstand at 13, and later founded what would become a multi-billion dollar insurance empire with $100 of his hard-earned savings.
Stone's own rags-to-riches story convinced him that, with a positive mental attitude, anyone could become successful. The formula for achievement that he shared with us that day allowed no room for procrastination, however: "When you wake up in the morning, start with the phrase, 'Do it now, do it now, do it now, do it now,'" he said. He added that we should repeat those three words 50 times in the morning and 50 times before bed.
The message he wanted to ingrain in our heads was simple: If you want to be successful, don't wait for tomorrow. Just do it now.
Stone, who died in 2002 at the age of 100, was a prime example of the power of starting. He didn't let significant obstacles deter him from becoming successful because he understood that the journey of 1,000 does begin with one step.
And there's no time like the present to take that first step.
I don't know what you need to start. Maybe it's an MBA program. A foreign-language course. A leadership training program. An exercise regimen. A new way of running meetings. A complete overhaul of your hiring process. The search for a new job. It doesn't matter what it is.
Just start now!
If you're still wavering, let me give you three more reasons why you should start now:
- Start now because today matters.
That phrase "today matters" represents a deep conviction I have that, to borrow a line from Benjamin Franklin, "One today is worth two tomorrows." Here's what I believe. Most people—including many leaders—over-exaggerate yesterday, over-estimate tomorrow, and under-estimate today.
The fact of the matter is that the "good old days" were never as good as we remember them to be, and tomorrow often isn't as productive as we think it will be. Today is the day that matters, the day with the greatest potential for accomplishment.
- Start now because it removes the greatest barrier to your success.
Do you know what that barrier is? It's what W. Clement Stone warned against—procrastination. Anyone who brags about what they're going to do tomorrow probably did the same thing yesterday.
My friend Dick Biggs made a tremendously insightful comment one day while we were having lunch together. "John," he said, "let me tell you what the greatest gap is. The greatest gap is between knowing and doing." That is so true.
- Start now because it is the open door for opportunity.
It's the job that never started that takes longest to finish. And let me tell you something—you cannot win if you do not begin. You must go through the door of opportunity when it opens to you, because you never know how long it's going to stay open or if it will ever open again.
I love this statement by Karen Lamb: "A year from now you may wish you had started today." Those are strong words of caution, especially for people who are reluctant to start because they're comfortable with the status quo, they're afraid of failure or they don't want to put forth the effort.
This highlights a problem that is all too prevalent in the 21st-century marketplace: We want the rewards of success without paying the price. Unfortunately, as Seth Godin—author of Purple Cow and Permission Marketing—pointed out in the May 2003 issue of "Fast Company," you can't have one without the other.
"You don't win an Olympic gold medal with a few weeks of intensive training," Godin wrote. "There's no such thing as an overnight opera sensation. Great law firms or design companies don't spring up overnight. Every great company, every great brand, every great career has been built in exactly the same way: bit by bit, step by step, little by little."
In other words, there is no magic solution to success. But there is a first step, and that first step is starting. Not tomorrow, but today. Not next week, but now.
Start improving yourself today, and the rest will be history.
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