Success Principle #9 - Chapter Review

I'm reading the latest book from best-selling author Jack Canfield, titled The Success Principles, which comprise 64 different lessons that Canfield has learned during the past three decades as as a highly-successful entrepreneur, instructor, best-selling author and keynote speaker.

My goal is to write a summary review for each chapter, until I'm finished with the book. You can access the most recent past summary here: The Success Principle #8 - Chunk It Down.

Chapter 9: Success Leaves Clues
Canfield begins this chapter by noting that we're fortunate to be living in this current day and age where anything that you might want to try or achieve has already been accomplished. Regardless of whether it's beating breast cancer, becoming financially independent, starting a business or running a marathon - it has been done and those trailblazers have "left clues" to how they achieved their various objectives in the form of audio/video programs, books, online seminars or workshops.

The author notes that when you take advantage of this information, you'll discover that life is "...simply a connect-the-dots game, and all the dots have already been identified and organized by someone else."  However, it's up to the reader to work the program, use the system or implement the blueprint that's been left behind.

Canfield lists the following five reasons why most people fail to seek out this information and follow the clues:

1. Connecting the dots means hard work, which is difficult;
2. Connecting dots in new ways means change, which can be uncomfortable;
3. Asking for advice or information forces us to face the possibility of rejection;
4. Researching information can be inconvenient and time consuming;
5. It never occurs to us since we've never seen that kind of behavior modeled.

However, just because we've never done it before doesn't mean we can't do it now. Canfield offers the following steps to follow the clues toward your dream:

• Ask someone if you can shadow them for a day and watch them work. Or offer to be a volunteer, assistant, or intern for someone you might learn something from.
• Ask someone who has already achieved what you'd like to do, if you can interview them for a half hour on how you should best proceed.
• Seek out a teacher, mentor, resource, manual or program to help you achieve a major goal.

Ultimately, to accomplish something you've never achieved you'll have to do things you've never done. Learning from your own mistakes is extremely difficult, it's better to learn from the success of others.

Question: What clues have you been following in the wake of  another's success?