It’s rare for Hollywood to produce a movie that inspires us, and from all accounts, The Ultimate Gift does that and more. Appearing in theaters across the U.S. and Canada it stars Academy Award nominee Abigail Breslin, Drew Fuller, James Garner, Ali Hillis and Brian Dennehy. Based on the best-selling book by Jim Stovall, The Ultimate Gift is an unforgettable, involving story that has already created a strong grass-roots movement of giving and inspired millions of dollars of donations to charity. Watch this preview and then get to a movie theater and see for yourself.

Mark Victor Hansen, co-creator of the massive Chicken Soup for the Soul series, recently wrote some very powerful words about how easy it is to get into action:

“Doing doesn’t need a lot of definition! It means action, taking steps toward your goals! Once you understand your beliefs and thoughts … once you know what it is you want to be and who it is you wish to become … once you are clear on your dreams and begin living those very visions in your mind … you’ve already opened the door to action.

Action actually begins when you put that initial thought energy out there. The next step might be researching the activities you want to do. It might be networking or meeting people who are in the arena you’re interested in becoming a part of. It might be signing up for a seminar within your specific interest. It might entail researching the career position you wish to hold and finding out how - exactly - to get there.

When you take initial action, it doesn’t mean that you have to climb the entire mountain next Saturday. When I decided to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro last fall, I didn’t just decide to show up at the trailhead one day with a Powerbar in my back pocket. I started with small steps several months in advance. I began to change my diet; I incorporated exercise that increased my cardio endurance; and I started doing research on shoes and equipment used by those who had succeeded before me.

It’s not the size of the step that gets you there. It’s the fact that you’re taking the step.”

There’s an outstanding DVD of Mark Victor Hansen included with the Professional Edition of Goals 2007.

My friend Loral Langemeier has helped a lot of people build seven-figure wealth and I found this excerpt from her last newsletter to be “spot on,” as my U.K. friends would say.

The Vision Thing

An important step on the path to becoming a millionaire is to create and refine your vision, which is a description of what you want your life to be at any given moment. This may seem like a superfluous task but it’s really not since it concerns the financial infrastructure that supports your ultimate goals. Describing your vision should make you excited and proud. What does yours look like?

Become A Landlord

If you like being a homeowner, then you may love being a landlord. In addition to tax deductions for mortgage interest and property taxes, owners of rental property also enjoy deductions for homeowner’s insurance and property depreciation. Bottom line: you get a steady stream of income on an appreciating asset, pay less in taxes and keep more of your income.

Get A Mentor

Why would someone want to mentor you? Maybe they wouldn’t —but you’ll never know unless you inquire. At the very least, a potential mentor will be flattered you asked. Moreover, enlightened professionals understand that it never hurts to make an ally, even a newcomer to their industry. Plus, it could be the start of a lucrative referral source for both of you. After all, everyone has a specialty. For example, lawyers are often the best source of referrals for other lawyers.

My friend Michael Angier at SuccessNet.org had a great post on his blog that is worth some contemplation. And it doesn’t just apply to money. It applies to everything.

I’m writing this message while attending Rick Raddatz’s Business Makeover.

I’m spending two days in Denver—then two more days hanging out at Rick’s home in Breckinridge—with several other business owners masterminding about our business, how it works and what we’d like it to be. We brainstorm ways to take their business to the next level.

Rick is brilliant—smart, quick, experienced and very perceptive. He cuts right to the chase.

I’ve learned a lot, shared a lot and gained tons of ideas and gotten great clarity on how to simplify, grow and add value to those we serve.

Yesterday, while we were brainstorming with one of the participants, we asked how much they wanted to earn per year. They were unsure, so we asked again: $100,000? $500,000? A million?

This person was still thinking about their answer when Rick said, “It takes about the same amount of work to earn $100,000 as $1,000,000.”

That really made me stop and think.

Is that really true? With only a little reflection I could see that it was.

I realized that I had worked harder to make $50,000 a year than I worked to make $100,000 a year. And I’m not working any harder today when I’m making a lot more than that.

So what changed?

Well, I know more now. I have more experience. I’ve built upon my strengths and I’ve gained confidence. But mostly I’m thinking bigger and seeing more opportunity.

So I believe Rick’s viewpoint is accurate.

It doesn’t neccessarily take more work to earn a million dollars a year than it does $100K per year.

It does require a good attitude. And it helps if you believe this premise to be true.

With that—plus consistent effort and dedication—you can do it, too.

My note: Most people think the solution to more income, or more of anything, is simply to work harder. I know a lot of broke people who work very hard. If working harder was the answer they’d already be wealthy. The right, consistent activity is always required to reach every goal, but that doesn’t mean you have to work any harder than you are now.

Typically speaking, science is a pretty dry subject. But this article on goal setting at sciencecareers.org is anything but dry. This is a great article for goal setters in all careers. It’s called “Mastering Your Ph.D.: Setting Goals for Success” and I’d suggest you check it out before the end of the year and incorporate the principles into your action plan for 2007.

Read the article on setting goals for success here…

There’s still time to let your family and friends know what you really want for a Holiday gift.  Tell them you want Goal! The Dream Begins, an outstanding video you can pick up at Amazon.com or other video stores.  And if they don’t buy it for you — buy it yourself.  It’s the kind of stuff that reaching big dreams and big goals is all about!  Watch the preview.

And when you’re ready to begin YOUR dream click here….

My friend and mentor Jim Rohn is one of the wisest people I’ve ever known and this is some of his most classic wisdom:

“The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get.

When Andrew Carnegie died, they discovered a sheet of paper upon which he had written one of the major goals of his life: to spend the first half of his life accumulating money and to spend the last half of his life giving it all away. And he did!

Some people are disturbed by those tough days because all they have are the days. They haven’t designed or described or defined the future.

Goals. There’s no telling what you can do when you get inspired by them. There’s no telling what you can do when you believe in them. And there’s no telling what will happen when you act upon them.

We all need lots of powerful long-range goals to help us past the short-term obstacles.

The ultimate reason for setting goals is to entice you to become the person it takes to achieve them.

Don’t set your goals too low. If you don’t need much, you won’t become much.

If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build end up building us.

We all have two choices: We can make a living or we can design a life.”

While it’s true that there are some super high achievers with an apparent low self-esteem (Terrell Owens comes to mind), it’s also equally true that those who perform consistently at high levels of achievement over an extended time usually have a high self-esteem.

The person who taught me most of my lessons on self-esteem is Dr. Denis Waitley who has served as a performance coach for Olympic and Super Bowl athletes, Apollo Astronauts, returning POW’s, Fortune 500 leaders and millions of people around the world.  Here are some great insights he shares on self-esteem:

Following are six behaviors that increase self-esteem, enhance your self-confidence, and spur your motivation. You may recognize some of them as things you naturally do in your interactions with other people. But if you don’t, I suggest you motivate yourself to take some of these important steps immediately.

First, greet others with a smile and look them directly in the eye. A smile and direct eye contact convey confidence born of self-respect. In the same way, answer the phone pleasantly whether at work or at home, and when placing a call, give your name before asking to speak to the party you want to reach. Leading with your name underscores that a person with self-respect is making the call.

Second, always show real appreciation for a gift or complement. Don’t downplay or sidestep expressions of affection or honor from others. The ability to accept or receive is a universal mark of an individual with solid self-esteem.

Third, don’t brag. It’s almost a paradox that genuine modesty is actually part of the capacity to gracefully receive compliments. People who brag about their own exploits or demand special attention are simply trying to build themselves up in the eyes of others and that’s because they don’t perceive themselves as already worthy of respect.

Fourth, don’t make your problems the centerpiece of your conversation. Talk positively about your life and the progress you’re trying to make. Be aware of any negative thinking, and take notice of how often you complain. When you hear yourself criticize someone - and this includes self-criticism - find a way to be helpful instead of critical.

Fifth, respond to difficult times or depressing moments by increasing your level of productive activity. When your self-esteem is being challenged, don’t sit around and fall victim to ‘paralysis by analysis.’ The late Malcolm Forbes said, ‘Vehicles in motion use their generators to charge their own batteries. Unless you happen to be a golf cart, you can’t recharge your battery when you’re parked in the garage!’

Sixth, choose to see mistakes and rejections as opportunities to learn. View a failure as the conclusion of one performance, not the end of your entire career. Own up to your shortcomings, but refuse to see yourself as a failure. A failure may be something you have done - and it may even be something you’ll have to do again on the way to success - but a failure is definitely not something you are.

Even if you’re at a point where you’re feeling very negatively about yourself, be aware that you’re now ideally positioned to make rapid and dramatic improvement. A negative self-evaluation, if it’s honest and insightful, takes much more courage and character than the self-delusions that underlie arrogance and conceit. I’ve seen the truth of this proven many times in my work with athletes. After an extremely poor performance, a team or an individual athlete often does much better the next time out, especially when the poor performance was so bad that there was simply no way to shirk responsibility for it. Disappointment, defeat, and even apparent failure are in no way permanent conditions unless we choose to make them so. On the contrary, these undeniably painful experiences can be the solid foundation on which to build future success.

My friend Darren Hardy, who is President of TSTN, posted this to his blog a few days ago and it begs to be shared:

In the hustle and bustle of this technologically packed world you may decide you really don’t want to achieve any lasting success in your lifetime. Sure, you can find a lot of strategies and tips here that can help you increase your success rate. But what about the people who are perfectly happy not achieving anything? So this is for all the people who want to have goals but not achieve them.

1. Make your goals vague - When setting your goals, use adjectives such as “more” and “some.” Goals like “I want to make more money” or “I want to lose some weight” virtually guarantee your progress will be minimal. Be as wishy-washy as possible.

2. Make your goals difficult to visualize - A good way to do this is to keep changing your mind on the details of your goal. If you are thinking a goal such as: “I want to own a red, blue or yellow Corvette or just a Mustang”, then you are definitely on the right track. If you kept that goal planted firmly in your mind, you are virtually guaranteed you’ll never go above a used Hyundai.

3. Think and speak negatively about your goals - Try using words like “I can’t” and “It’s too hard”. Goals such as “I can’t get a promotion, It’s too hard to take on more responsibility” will certainly keep you at the bottom of the food chain.

4. Avoid planning incremental steps - Take a goal - even a specific goal like “I will double my income by this time next year”. Then simply leave it as-is. Don’t write down any tasks or steps you’ll need to complete in order to achieve it. Just consider the goal a wish and nothing more. Creating a step-by-step plan will only confuse matters because it’s all too easy to take action on simple steps. Action in the direction of your goal would lead to success and you definitely don’t want that.

5. Don’t Do - Talk - Because talk is easier than action, this step one of the easiest steps for you to take. Try to fill up as much of your day with socializing as possible. Talk about all the things you will do someday or that you were gonna do. Just make sure you don’t mess it up by doing anything productive. Action is your enemy. Embrace your excuses!

6. Wait until you are motivated - Let’s face it, it’s much too difficult to go jogging or open a mutual fund account when you simply don’t feel like it. So just wait. Waiting gives you the peace of mind that someday, you might do something. But not yet, the timing isn’t right and you aren’t motivated anyway.

7. Don’t set a date - Setting a date when you expect to achieve your goal is too much pressure. Who needs it? Definitely not you if you want to avoid progress. You know that goals with dates get done, so by not setting a date you avoid making a commitment. You can keep putting off stuff.

8. List why it’s impossible - Now we are getting into the mental game of failing. This is quite possibly your greatest weapon against achievement because it destroys hope and optimism. So as soon as possible, set aside some time to create a long list of how impossible your goal really is. No matter what your target is, I am sure you can come up with plenty of reasons why it’s impossible. Be creative, make up some if you have to.

9. Don’t research your goal - You’re the kind of guy or gal who likes to “wing it.” Reading about how others have succeeded achieving a goal similar to you is just a waste of time. Instead of standing on their shoulders, they should be standing on yours! Sure, they might have overcome unbelievable odds to get from homelessness to CEO or 450lbs to 180lbs - but they were probably just “lucky” anyway. Don’t read anything that promises to help you get to your destination.

10. Think of anything except your goal - Here’s another mental strategy that will put you on the fast track to failure. Think of anything except for your goal. Why visualize success when there are plenty of clouds and TV reruns to think about? And while you’re at it, take action on these flights of fancy instead of your goal. Take the easy path, that’s the only way you can fail in record time.

To conclude, I know you might be a bit overwhelmed with all the work you have to do to avoid reaching your goal. You might even think it’s even more work. Never fear! You can do it. Print out a copy and hang it on your bathroom mirror. Post it in your office. Read it every day. Internalize these principals and you can reach depths of failure you have possibly never imagined!

Abridged from Achieve-IT! at www.persistenceunlimited.com

Robert Collier said that “success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” Show me your daily habits and I can predict your level of success without knowing anything else about you. Here’s an excellent article by my friend, Philip Humbert, on the power of daily habits:

Daily Habits Determine Your Destiny

Almost everything we do is the result of our habits. We get up about the same time, go through a familiar routine of showering, brushing our teeth, and getting ready for the day. Most people take the same route to work every day, whether they drive the freeway, ride the train or take a bike. Of course, there are minor variations as we decide what to wear, make allowance for road construction or get up early for a breakfast meeting.

But the fact remains that habits simplify our lives. Imagine if you woke up with no idea where the bathroom or closet might be, what your schedule was, or what responsibilities you faced. Life would be stressful beyond belief! Fortunately, we have “ordinary routines” that help us navigate our way to our first cup of coffee, and guide our activities through the day. Most of the time, our habits serve us well.

And here’s a vital point: Habits start out as very simple choices.

There’s an old diddy that goes something like this: Sow a thought, and reap an action. Sow action, and reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character and reap a destiny. Think about the power of that sequence! To a remarkable degree our ultimate success or failure in life is the long-term result of simple thoughts and ordinary, routine habits.

So, why not intentionally choose daily habits or “disciplines” that will take you where you want to go in life? Here are a few examples.

Many people get in the habit of listening to sports or talk radio while they commute and, of course there’s nothing wrong with that. But other people get in the habit of listening to motivational, inspirational or educational CD’s, and over time, they benefit from that daily habit.

Or how about people who routinely grab a hamburger and fries for lunch, while others habitually reach for a salad? Some people habitually come home and turn on the TV, while others come home and go for a run, mow the lawn or do homework with the kids. Any of those choices are “easy” but some lead to better long-term outcomes than others. Some people have the habit of spending, while others choose the habit of saving and investing. Either option is easy and fun, but they have very different long-term results.

As a coach, I encourage my clients to make a handful of fundamental decisions about the habits they want in their lives. I encourage them to be clear, specific and committed to each of them.

One habit Mary and I have had for twenty years is that the first three words we utter every morning and the last three we say at night are the same: “I love you.” Many of my clients have developed the habit of reading something positive every single day, even if it’s only a few pages. Over time, it becomes a part of who they are and how they live their lives.

For years I’ve had a “Daily 7″ that I pursue and the “code” may not mean much to you, but the list has powerful meaning for me. My Daily 7 are: “Read, Write, Walk, Work, Nest, Network, and Fun.” Each word stands for a pattern or habit that I want in my life. Some days, they get more focus or effort than others, but over the years those seven “code words” have helped me stay healthy, enriched my marriage, made me money and expanded my community. My “Daily 7″ are habits that help me create the life I’ve chosen for myself.

I encourage you to choose a few simple, positive habits that will enhance your life. Reduce them to simple actions you WILL take every day. If they are complicated, you may not stay committed to them, so use the KISS formula and “Keep It Simple and Straight-forward.” It’s easier to develop the habit of “exercising for 15 minutes” than to “get fit.”

For better or worse, life is made up of our small daily habits. High achievers have habits that reflect their values and aspirations in life. Unfortunately, most people have habits that keep them comfortable but do not achieve the things they want in life. Over time, work to remove habits that overtly hold you back, but it’s even more important to add positive daily habits that reflect your highest and best qualities.

For more Resources for Success, go to www.philiphumbert.com .