Creating Success from the Inside Out: Develop The Focus and Strategy To Uncover the Life You Want

VI.2. Where to Get the Information and Knowledge You Need

A common excuse I talked about in an earlier section is "How can I start a business when I don't know anything about______?" Fill in the blank. The blank could be running a barber shop, starting a cab company, or becoming a stock broker. It could be buying an oil well, building airplanes, driving a truck, or whatever your dream is.

Even if your goal is not a business, when we start out we are all empty slates, with none of the knowledge or real-world experience we need to succeed. I never said you didn't need to have the knowledge, or at least know where to get the knowledge, in order to succeed. Using knowledge as an excuse is an entirely different thing from recognizing the need to have certain specialized knowledge, and going and getting it.

Even worse than starting out with nothing, more often than not we start out full of junk—bad habits and misinformation. Whether you're talking relationships or business, we have to flush out the bad before we can grow. We have to "unlearn" what we've been taught about life, business, our potential, and "conventional wisdom."

There Are No Excuses for Failure

Assuming you know how to read, write, and speak the English language with a relatively useable degree of skill, excuses like "I don't know" or "I don't have anything" are pretty weak. In my mind, there's just no excuse for lacking the information and knowledge you need to succeed today. It's too available, too accessible, and ...