7 Keys to Winning

Charles F. Kettering, a scientist and inventor, had a theory to remove failure from any situation was to create an environment where a person didn’t believe that they could fail. If they believed that they couldn’t fail, that they wouldn’t consider it an option. That we need to get it the very thought of failure out of our minds.

Dr. Kettering took a young man who worked at General Motors, and handed him a problem that GM needed a solution for. However, he didn’t give him access to any of the notes of the previous researchers who had documented. He didn’t want him to see that scientists, and researchers with much stronger résumé’s than this young man had actually logged in that this was a challenge that was impossible to solve. Since the young man didn’t know that, he went a head and solved it.

Paul, in 1st Corinthians, Chapter 9 has a tremendous key for winning.

“ Do you not know that everyone runs in a race but only one gets the prize? So Run, (run in that way) so that you may obtain it.”


You must live your life like your running a race, that only one gets the prize.
What is Paul saying? Since he was talking about Heaven, did he mean that we are all competing for one ticket in?

Why not compare it to a team sport? I think it was because he wanted us to think of what we are doing, or not doing. In team sports when we lose, we always tend to blame someone else. It is never your fault We love to pass the buck, we love laying blame, pointing fingers at others. Anything to get the focus off of us. Failure is a part of life, we all fail, make mistakes, errors.

We are going to offend people, and wish we could take back something we said. However, keep in mind we can no more take back something said, than we can un-fry an egg. Paul wants us to understand that if we don’t win, if we don’t get the prize, it is all on us, no one else.

The wonderful thing about commission sales, is if you succeed, you will get all the credit for it. However, if you fail you will get all the blame as well.

Hopefully, no one in here are depressed over that last statement. There are people who would hear that and groan “oh man, I can’t stand getting all the blame” HEY why so negative, why didn’t you hear the first part and hear that you will get all the credit? EXPECT TO WIN. Don’t look only at the possibility of failure.

Have you ever heard anyone say, “Well, with my luck..” If you ever hear anyone start to say that, SLAP THEM upside the head, they are about to say something stupid and embarrass themselves.

You need to look for success, not failure. Whatever you’re focused on is what your will produce. Focus on winning, not on failure. If only one is going to get the prize in this race, MAKE IT ME. I am the man or woman that is going to get it done!

If you took the best archer in the world and blindfolded him and spun him around, how good will he be? How can he hit a goal he can’t see? Probably every bit as easy as hitting a goal that you don’t have. You need a goal, it takes more than enthusiasm, we have to know where we are going.

There are 7 Keys to Winning to cover today

1. Destination.

You need to know where your headed.
Where do you want to be in 5 years?
By the end of this year?
By the end of this month?

2. Dream

Turn the destination into a Dream. As long as it is a Destination it is only something hypothetical, a maybe someday kind of thing.
To make it a dream, you need to put you in it. You have to see yourself doing whatever it is, living there, being it. You have to feel it, taste it, believe it.

In the 1984 Olympics, Mary Lou Rettin going for the vault, an event dominated by the eastern Europeans for years, she would when called stop, close her eyes, then open them and go and perform a flawless perfect 10. To prove it wasn’t a fluke she did the exact same thing again. When asked what she was doing when she closed her eyes by a reporter, she said she closed her eyes and watched herself do a flawless performance. Then when she opened her eyes she just would do what she had just seen herself do. What a lot of people didn’t know, is she had just had knee surgery a few weeks before those Olympics. She was able to shut even that out of her head while performing.

3. Deadline. By putting a deadline on your dream, you have just made it a goal.

Most people don’t want to commit a deadline and put a date on it, they don’t want to write it down, because it puts visual evidence that you had set it. It makes it tough to “change your mind” later, it is on paper. It makes wimping out tougher, THAT IS THE IDEA.

What if you set a date and miss it? I will bet you will be closer than if you never set it at all. You need to WRITE IT DOWN, join the top 3% of all Americans, and write it down.

In Habbaka Chapter 2, verse 2

“Write the vision, make it plain that he may run well that readeth it.”

4. Decision.

The Deadline requires a decision, but the BIGGIE, is the Decision that you need to make, that no matter what, I AM GOING TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN.

5. Drive.

Stay motivated.

We have to fight the negative, a full 77% of everything we hear daily is negative, you have to purpose your heart to be positive or you won’t be. Paul was going to prison for the rest of his life, he was leaving behind his friends knowing he would never see any of them again.

Here is what he said.

Acts 20:24

“ For none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear to myself that I may finish my course with Joy.”

Nehemiah
“The Joy of the Lord is my Strength.”

Why didn’t they say the Happiness is my strength?

Happiness is momentary, it comes and goes with situations in our lives by the moment, we are happy, then we aren’t. Have you ever known anyone who gets their strength from happiness, they are always on an emotional, and professional roller coaster. External circumstances knock them around like a toy boat in the water.

Joy is something deeper, it is knowing where your going. If you have your eye on the prize, and you know where you’re going, you can have joy in all situations, because you will realize that whatever is going on is temporary, what is permanent is where you’re going.

If they say No, so what, SWSWSW, Some will, some won’t, so what!
Their no can’t keep you from your goal, it is your goal, they didn’t reject you, but your opportunity you showed them. It is their loss, I always feel sorry when someone says no, they lose bigger than I did.

If you have achieved big goals, Congratulations, now set bigger ones and reach from Peak to Peak.

6. Discipline.

“I’m your constant companion,
I’m your greatest helper, or your heaviest burden.
I will push you onward, or drag you down to failure.
I’m completely at your control.

Half the things you do, you might as just as well turn them over to me, and I will be able to do them quickly and correctly. I’m easily managed, you must merely be firm with me.

Show me exactly how you want something done, and after a few lessons I will do it automatically.

I’m the servant of all great men, and alas of all failures as well.

Those who are Great, I have made Great.
Those who are failures I have made failures.

I’m not a machine, but I work with all the precision of a machine, plus the intelligence of a man.

You may run me for profit, or run me for ruin, it makes no difference to me.

Train me, be firm with me, and I will place the world at your feet.
Be easy with me and I will destroy you.

Who am I? I am Habit.

Discipline is the act of making good habits. Discipline is doing what you don’t “feel” like doing. You do it because you want the results. Football players don’t usually enjoy practice, what they enjoy is winning and they know that the discipline in practice creates the winning opportunity later. Successful people are merely average people who are willing to do what other people aren’t willing to do, so they can live later like others can’t.

Destination, and Dreams are nice, but without Discipline your just Dreaming, WAKE UP!

Discipline can only happen after you decide on a destination, and set a deadline, those have to come first or there isn’t any discipline possible.

7. Determination.

Mustard Seed Faith

“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Determination is the true test of character. Character is continuing to work toward your goals long after the emotion is gone from when they were set. It is setting your jaw and pressing forward toward the mark.

You Can Do It!