Extreme Success: The 7-Part Program That Shows You How to Break the Old Rules and Succeed Without Struggle - Hardcover

Chapter 1: Success Without Struggle

There are only two times I feel stress: day and night.

-- Anonymous

I was ready to push my limits, to succeed at something I had never done before. That meant boarding the waiting airplane and pushing myself through a cargo door while cruising at 90 miles per hour at 14,000 feet.

I stood at this brink for one reason: I wanted to break through the unfounded terror I harbored about doing a solo jump out of an airplane. It wasn't as if I hadn't tried other boundary-breaking excursions. After all, I did bungee jump off the Golden Gate Bridge and rock climb sheer cliffs. But this was different. I really wanted to challenge myself, based on what I knew I could do -- but the idea sent bolts of stark terror through me.

As I stood there, struggling with my fear, my skydiving instructor sauntered over. "Hi, I'm Billy," he drawled, offering his hand. About forty, with a three-day growth of beard, he wore a T-shirt that said SKYDIVERS: GOOD TO THE LAST DROP.

When Billy asked me if I was scared, I tried to be cool. "No. I'm not really that scared," I said with a shaky voice. Then I let out a nervous giggle. I think Billy saw right through my act and knew how terrified I really was. Undeterred, he went over the safety instructions carefully as we put on our parachutes.

Billy and I joined a group of skydivers as we walked toward the plane. I boarded first, which meant I'd be the last one to jump. This seemed like a great plan while I was on the ground. Unfortunately, I realized that it just gave me more time to imagine what it would be like to plummet toward the earth like a meteor if the parachute didn't open.

As I pondered my fate, the other skydivers crowded into the plane. We sat on the floor in two long rows going from front to back, packed like eggs in a carton. All I could think about was what happened to Humpty Dumpty.

The higher we climbed, the faster my heart beat.

Finally, it was my turn to jump. "Remember," Billy yelled at me over the howling wind, "if you ever start to panic or struggle, just stop, be aware, and resume control." Nodding, I took a deep breath and then shouted out the protocol: "Ready...set...go!" Billy and I jumped out of the plane and into one of the most life-changing events of my life.

Billy stayed with me until we reached five thousand feet. Then he soared away so that we would have enough room to open our parachutes. As soon as I was on my own I heard that familiar nagging voice of fear that tortured me. "What are you doing out here alone?" the voice taunted me. "You're going to screw up. You're going to die!"

All of a sudden I lost focus and stopped arching my body the way I had been instructed. My body flipped, and I started to tumble over and over as I frantically grabbed for the rip cord. But the harder I tried, the more I missed it -- and the closer I fell to the quickly approaching ground.

Then I remembered Billy's words: Stop. Be aware. Resume control. In that moment I stopped struggling. I corrected my position, found the rip cord, and pulled it. Phoomph! A huge multicolored canopy mushroomed above me as I floated gently to earth.

I yelled in triumph as I touched down. I realized that I had overcome my fears and done something I had always dreamed about doing. Not only had I overcome my fear -- I had done it twice. Once before I jumped and once after. I achieved what I came to refer to as Extreme Success, that is, using powerful strategies to dramatically expand my success into new areas. At the same time, I overcame the nearly overpowering sense of struggle that almost prevented me from fulfilling my goal. The rush I then experienced was fantastic. I felt adrenaline pumping through my body and I felt totally alive! I was energized and invigorated. It was an incredible feeling!

I learned an awesome lesson that day. I discovered that struggle doesn't make success happen. In fact, struggle can prevent success from happening.

This is the basis of the energizing philosophy I've adapted for my life -- and the heart of my business. I've learned how to neutralize struggle, redirect fear, and stay focused so that it is possible to achieve greater success. Like me, my clients have learned how to do this. And now so can you.

Struggle: The Syndrome That Keeps On Giving

"C'mon Rich! The harder you work the better you'll be!" This belief was drummed into my head about fifteen years ago, when I was a competitive bodybuilder.

Every night at eleven o'clock, after a day working my full-time job and taking evening college classes, I would go to the gym. In the nearly deserted space I'd strain to lift weights for one more repetition while my workout partner would scream commands like, "No pain, no gain!" in my face like a drill sergeant.

Now, in bodybuilding, that may be true. It is important to put lots of stress on muscles to make them grow. The other lessons I learned, like discipline, focus, and visualizing my goals, also helped me to become more successful in other areas of my life. However, I took on the philosophy that the more I struggled and worked really, really hard, the more successful I would be. My problem was that I got in the habit of applying that philosophy to my entire life.

I also formed the skewed belief that struggle is noble. I thought that the harder I worked, the better a person I would be. Like millions of others, I bought into this counterproductive point of view. As a coach, I've heard it so many times I've coined a term for it: the Struggle Syndrome. Nobody I know embodies it better than my friend Chuck.

Chuck, Amuck

No one could ever deny that Chuck works hard. Actually, he'd be the first to agree. He delights in telling people how busy he is, how overworked, how he has no time to live because he is so overloaded. Chuck makes these statements with pride, as if he deserves multiple pats on the back for all the struggle he is putting himself through.

And struggle it certainly is. His office looks like it was arranged by a tornado. Sticky notes cover the computer screen, and to-do memos are taped all over the desk lamp. Piles teeter upon piles. Just trying to get from his office door to his desk is an extreme sport in itself.

Every January for the past several years Chuck has told me, "This is the year I stop chasing my tail. I'm going to be organized and more effective." (As of this writing, it hasn't happened yet.)

Chuck's behavior is anything but unusual. The belief that struggle is an inseparable partner of success is deeply ingrained in our society; it's something I hear from just about all my clients. When I ask them why they feel this way, they usually say, "My parents always told me that if I wanted to make it big I had to work hard. And every time a colleague succeeds, you always hear someone say, 'Wow, he really worked hard for that. He deserves the recognition he's getting.'" They quote from self-help books they've read and seminars they've attended, all of which stress the effort of success and involve breaking through obstacles and making great personal sacrifices on the road to achievement. They believe that the reward for a job well done is more work. Is it any surprise that they usually feel overwhelmed and/or burned out?

Ultimately, they equate success with pain and end up filtering their work -- and their lives -- through the assumption that struggle is inevitable. The result is that other options don't get any consideration. When this happens it's time to remove the struggle filter and look at life through a wide-angle lens that reveals a much bigger picture with many more choices.

So when my clients start to brag about how busy they are, I shock them by saying, "Oh,