[Guddamit]

I cope with PTSD, am a little adult ADHD, and been diagnosed as manic depressive. I'm known to procrastinate. I'm able to multi task to the detrimate of getting stuff finished. But do I care? Not now!

At the age of 15 I dropped out of high school. My Dad wanted me to be a doctor, life wanted me to have fun. I found a job, got a car, had a girlfriend. Things were rosey. I learnt about hire purchase, I learnt about debt, and I learnt that money definitely doesn't grow on trees.

Vietnam and my army experience left me scarred, but that wouldn't raise its ugly head until 20 years later.

In the intervening years, I married, twice, had kids, six, and strived to make a living at a job, any kind of job. The problem was me. I couldn't stick with anything. I had grand ideas of making money from all sorts of things, yet the success I wanted eluded me.

In the mid eighties I went to college, got degree in education and a diploma in teaching. I had a career and the prospects were good. Excellent pay, a loving wife, and a new found interest: Learning. I wanted to learn about as much as I could about everything.

In the mid nineties everything turned to mush. The years of denial of my short TOD in Vietnam came like a tornado and I fell into a deep rut of depression. I lost my career, income fell to an all time low, and I felt that I was rejected.

My family stood by me, not fully aware of the reasons for my sudden downfall. My military past was my secret and I couldn't explain why I was depressed.

But there is always a light at the end of the tunnel, so they say, and one flickered ever so faint, but flickered all the same. The only way out of depression, for me at least, was me. I had to pull myself up. With the help from a friend in the US, himself a veteran of Vietnam, understood my pain and helped me through the darkest period of my life.

During that recovery period I wrote a small booklet called "The Success Factor in Modern Living". The financial success was cool, but as a theraputic exercise it did wonders for me.

Today I've taken the teaching experience, my love of writing, the software programming skills I have picked up on the way, and am slowly carving a niche for myself. Success. I've discovered is relative. While I have not yet reached my financial goals, I know I'm headed in the right direction. I have fanciful dreams, a large house, cars, money, but most of all I dream of contentment, and happiness for my wife and family. How to get there? one step at a time, that's all.

Below is an excerpt out of the upcoming edition of my book. They are the seven rules of success that I live by. Others may find them helpful:

1. Success is relative.
Yup. This is true. Success is measured relative to the amount of time effort or resources you put into it. Put a lot in, you get a lot out. Put very little in, you get little in return.

2. Success is a result of what you believe.
If you believe you are successful, then you are successful. Believe you are not successful then you are not. It’s plain and simple. Everyone (with certain exceptions) is in control of their own destiny.

3. Success or failure is not caused by anybody else but you.
The decisions you make are the ones that give you the outcome you experience. Too often people find excuses for their own misfortune: not enough education, not lucky, no opportunities, etc. etc. etc. This is BS; no matter race, creed, color, social status, or whatever excuse people can conjure for their lack, the bottom line is that each and every person (with certain exceptions) is responsible for their own success or failure.

4. Success or failure is an addiction to habit.
People who say they cannot give up smoking are not only addicted to nicotine, they are addicted to habit. Most habits are things people do without thought. Habits are caused by people unwilling to change to do something different. People who say they cannot be successful are addicted to the habit of thinking about failure. People who blame other’s for their failure are addicted to the habit of thinking that other people are to blame. People who continuously complain about their health, their lack of wealth, their dislike of their job, or any other thing they find fit to complain about are addicted to their habit of complaining.
Likewise those who are successful are addicted to the habit of being successful. They do not make habit out of their failures, they make habit of not failing at the same thing again.

5. Success comes to people who crave it with a passion.
You always get what you want. The more passionate you are about what you want, the sooner you will receive it.

6. Success is overcoming procrastination.
Procrastination is another addiction to a habit. By developing a habit to doing things right away, you will kill the habit of procrastination.

7. Successful people develop new positive habit addictions.
Couple these new addictions with passion and you will have success for life.

Thanks.