How to Succeed in Life
David Kekich is a notable authority in Longevity Science. He’s an author and founder of the Maximum Life Foundation. He founded the country’s largest life insurance master general agency, co-founded a major financial services company and arranged venture capital funding for private companies.
I find many of his life's credos to be inspirational and am sharing them below with whomever wishes to emulate him. I hope that you find the way I have presented the information useful.
Prerequisite for Success
People will do almost anything to stay in their comfort zones. If you want to accomplish anything, get out of your comfort zone.
Strive to increase order and discipline in your life. Discipline usually means doing the opposite of what you feel like doing.
Your Most Valuable Resource
Time and tide waits for no man. Time is your most valuable resource because it is not renewable. It is gone forever once it is past.
Time is the only limitation to all accomplishments. To waste time is to waste your life. The most important choice you’ll ever make is how you use your time.
Think carefully before making any offers, commitments or promises, no matter how seemingly trivial. These are all contracts and must be honored. These also include self-resolutions.
Your Personal Life - Do's
Religiously nourish your body with proper nutrition, exercise, recreation, sleep and relaxation techniques.
The choice to exert integrated effort or to default to camouflaged laziness is the key choice that determines your character, competence and future.
That critical choice must be made continually – throughout life. The most meaningful thing to live for is reaching your full potential.
Keep an active mind, and continue to grow intellectually. You either grow or regress. Nothing stands still.
Identify and replace all external authorities with internal strength and competence.
Take full control of, and responsibility for, your conscious mind and every aspect of your life.
That which is most satisfying is that which is earned.
Anything received free of charge is seldom valued.
You can’t get something for (from) nothing.
Associate with people who share your values.
You become whom you associate with.
Enjoy life. Treat it as an adventure. Care passionately about the outcome, but keep it in perspective.
Lighten up. You’ll live longer.
You are responsible for exactly who, what and where you are in life.
Situations aren’t important. How you react to them is.
Forgive, learn your lessons, and get on with your life.
High self-esteem can only come from moral productivity and achievement.
Have fun. The single key to a successful happy life is finding a vocation you enjoy – one that excites you the most.
The source of lasting happiness can never come from outside yourself through consuming values – but only from within yourself by creating values.
Producing more than you consume is the only justification for existence.
Find an excuse to laugh every chance you get, especially when you least feel like it.
Experience is not what happens to you. It’s what you do with what happens to you.
Your Personal Life - Don'ts
Live with chronic stress as stress kills.
No matter how painful in the short-term, remove all chronically stressful situations, environments and people from your life.
Be preoccupied with things over which you have no control
Don’t take things personally.
Things are seldom as bleak as they seem when they are going wrong – or as good as they seem when they are going well.
Never be deceptive when trying to achieve a personal gain.
Shortchanging others results in loss of self-esteem.
Bitterness, jealousy and anger empower your enemies and enslave you.
Don't let issues fester.
Unattended problems will not go away, but will usually get worse.
Set yourself deadlines and stick to them
Focus on what you do well and what is important and also what is enjoyable to you
Replace bad habits and thought patterns, one by one, over time, with good habits and thought patterns.
Your Professional Life - Do's
Learn from the Giants - Emulate those you hope to become
Real regrets only come from not doing your best. All else is out of your control. You’re measured by results only.
Do more than is expected of you.
Life’s easy when you live it the hard way… and hard if you try to live it the easy way.
Always show gratitude when earned, monetarily if possible
Most accomplishment (and problem avoidance) is built on clear persuasive communication.
That includes knowing each other’s definitions, careful listening, thinking before talking, focused questioning and observing your feedback.
Become a communications expert.
Identify exactly what it is you want. This takes a lot of thought. Don’t let anything stand in your way of getting it.
The foundation of achievement is intense desire.
The world’s highest achievers have the highest levels of dissatisfaction. Those with the lowest levels are the failures.
The best way to build desire is to make resolute choices for the future.
Geniuses delegate 90%… and spend all their time on their “unique ability”.
There are an infinite number of new opportunities.
Actively seek them out, and position yourself to recognize and take advantage of them.
The “how” you get it (with integrity) is more important than the “what”.
The best way to get started is to get started.
Life rewards action… not reaction. Wait for nothing. Attack life.
Strip all limits from your imagination on every deal and look for an unconventional creative opportunity in every mistake, crisis or problem.
Be flexible, and be willing to turn on a dime when advantageous.
You get what you expect, not what you want.
Fill your life with positive expectations. Demand the best.
Attitude and desire contribute to 90% of your achievement.
Anticipate and avoid problems – or meet them head on at the outset.
Overcome fear by attacking it.
It takes a wise man to learn from his own mistakes… and a genius to learn and profit from the mistakes and experiences of others.
Your Professional Life - Don'ts
Trade excuses and “trying” for results and expect half-hearted results from half-hearted efforts.
Don't rationalize. Rationalizations are generally convenient evasions of reality and are used as excuses for dishonest behavior, mistakes and/or laziness.
Be incompetent or dependent in any part of your life or business opens you up to sloppiness, manipulation and irrationality.
Most people spend 90% of their time on what they’re not best at and what they don’t like doing – and only 10% of their time on their best and most enjoyable ability.
Don’t plan to death or ask for permission…
Act now… and apologize later.
Don’t believe it’s true or right just because it’s conventional.
Nothing shows more caring than a Personalized Gift