During one of the forums I’ve spoken at, I brought the audience on a journey in search of their Genie.
Imagine this:

You receive a nicely typed brochure that promises the Genie’s existence. Find the Genie and you will have all your wishes come true. At first, you were a bit sceptical about the whole idea. But something inside you told you to keep the brochure. A few months passed, and you bump into a long-lost friend. He seems very excited and passionate about life and can’t wait to tell you everything about it. He tells you the secret: He found his Genie. As he continues to describe in minute details of his adventure, you get more excited about the whole idea of searching for Your Genie. You start to believe it now.

After due consideration, you finally jump up and say to yourself, “I’m gonna do this!” You start planning for the exciting adventure ahead of you, prepare to sail into the unknown. Some of your family, friends and relatives try to convince you that it is not “realistic”. They discourage you. They even laugh at you and make a joke out of you. Fortunately, your belief is so strong, it’s unshakable. So you go ahead and take risks.

As you handle your life and prepare for your adventure into the future, you realise that there are sacrifices you need to make. Tough decisions. You stop for a moment and think again. “Should I go ahead?” You hear a lot of noises in your head—that try to tell you otherwise. Those are the voices of the fearful, logical, rational and “realistic” you. But then you focus hard to find that little voice within you. That ever so gentle and calming voice, that is finally heard, “This is it. Go for it.” That’s your voice of courage, instinct and inspiration. And you decide to make those sacrifices, because you know they are just short-term.

So you set sail towards the most important journey of your life, in search of your turning point in life. It isn’t an easy journey.

Two years have passed, and you are still searching for that magical moment. You know it’s not going to be an easy journey. At this point in time, you start imagining what would those critics have said about you should you quit and turn back now. That very thought angers you and thrusts you forward. This time, not only you have belief, but you have conviction. You tell yourself, “Let’s see who will have the last laugh.” And you put up a broad smile, and move ahead into the unknown. You are extremely hopeful.

Now you are enjoying your journey and find excitement in exploring the unknown. You love your new adventure! You scream on top of your lungs, “Life is so amazing when I don’t play it safe! Woohooo!” As you start to enjoy your journey, you enjoy new challenges too, knowing that they are stepping stones towards your ultimate destination. You persist through all the challenges ahead of you.

Five years and eight months later, you have arrived. This is it. You stand there in amazement, staring at the magical lamp in front of you. Speechless. Tears of joy are rolling along your cheek towards your broadest smile ever. Congratulations! You’ve made it!

Whatever your Genie in life is—whether it’s financial freedom, quality relationship, your dream job, dream house, dream car, dream lifestyle, health freedom or time freedom—if you want what you desire in life, these are the 5 crucial steps you must take:

Believe in the long-term promises

Dare to risk losing face & looking stupid

Willing to make short-term sacrifices

Be hopeful at all times

Persist through challenges

Remember, winners have commitment. Losers want convenience. If you want to win in life, you must commit to do whatever it takes in spite of inconveniences.

Believe… and you shall achieve.

Further reading

• Do Pain And Pleasure Use You?
• What I Saw At The Graveyard
• Take Action!
• The Magic Of Thinking Big
• You Deserve A Second Chance

“The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you’re in control of your life. If you don’t, life controls you.”

—Anthony Robbins

Today, in one of my weekly trainings, I shared about the Pain-Pleasure Principle (PPP) that was popularised by Anthony Robbins. The PPP explains that all decisions and choices that we make in life are motivated by either:

• gaining the pleasure of; or
• avoiding the pain of not

making those decisions and choices.

Think about it. You’ve made the choice of getting into that job, relationship or business at some point in time. You did it probably because of the promises you saw in it. Or you probably did it because of the pain of not having it. Either way, you were motivated by the PPP.

In the training today, I asked the participants what were the motivating factors (pleasure) behind their reasons to want to achieve success in life. Most shouted out the promises of having more time and money freedom, the sense of achievement and the ability to leave a legacy for their generations to come. I then asked them about what were the pain of not achieving success. They shouted even louder this time. “Being looked down at”, “Being criticised”, “Tarnished reputation”, “Being broke”, “Feeling like a loser” etc. were just some of the most common reasons.

“People change only when they hurt enough that they have to, learn enough that they want to, or receive enough that they are able to.”

—John C. Maxwell

Personally, I believe that one of the ways to use pain and pleasure effectively is to:

1. list down in a piece of paper all the pleasure you will gain from making that decision or choice and taking the necessary actions; and
2. on another piece of paper, list down all the pain you will get for NOT taking the necessary actions and thus not having the results you desired.

The first list will be your source of motivation and willpower. Look into this list whenever you feel that you are about to breakdown or give up. These are your intentions—your very reasons for doing what you’re doing.

The second list will be your source of urgency. Look into this list whenever you feel like you’re not fast enough in achieving your results, or stagnant. Many people completely ignore this list because they fear being reminded of the things in this list so they can avoid taking actions and thus avoiding the responsibilities to make things happen. But we all know that we owe it to ourselves to create what we want in life, and no one else.

If it’s to be, it’s up to me.

You only have one life in this lifetime. Own it. Live it. Make it the best life you’ve ever had in this lifetime.

Further reading

• How To Have All Your Wishes Come True
• Take Action!
• What I Saw At The Graveyard
• Do You Think With Your BUT?
• Dying Professor’s Last Lecture