We all want to achieve success in our lives.

We may have different definitions of success and want to achieve success in different
areas of our lives. But it is in our human nature to want to do better, achieve more, and feel
successful. We have been taught since we were little that no matter what we choose to do
in life, we should do our best—and try to win!

Before anyone jumps to any conclusions, my philosophy is “success with honor,” not “win at
any cost.” Yet succeed is what we want to do as human beings. Some writers want to tell
you about the “secrets of success.” What I want to do in this article and in my e-books on
the subject of success and success stories from real life is to take off the veil of these so-
called secrets and make them plain to you. These are the top tips I can teach you—but they
are truly the tips of the icebergs. What I hope to present is a coherent framework so that you
can then do additional reading and study on your own.

Success means…

That we have done our best to create and have created a new reality for ourselves, a new
life…

That new reality is one of achievement and satisfaction of our needs. Our purpose may be
to become wealthy and self-sufficient in our lives so that we can pursue other dreams in the
next phase of our lives. Our purpose may be to save the world and as many of the souls in it
as we can reach. Our purpose may be to be able to help others, family and friends and
even strangers, to achieve their goals in life. All of us must find the ways that work for us to
achieve success. There are keys to success which we can learn and understand, as a
beginning to the work which is necessary to fully unlock the doors we need to walk through
in order to achieve success. This article can help get you through the right doors by giving
you ten special keys to understanding the process of how people achieve success.

Whatever your field, profession, and purpose, there are specific principles which you must
understand in order to achieve success—these are the keys to the kingdom. It is just the
beginning—the unlocking of the door, but there will be time and material to help you in the
detail work later. Right now, the first thing to understand is that there is a science to
achieving success. In other words, the science of success is something we can study and
learn from. The principles are demonstrated over and over again in the lives of successful
people. And these basic principles do not change. That is what makes them scientific—the
principles are observable and constant. Once you learn the keys to success and unlock
some of the doors and barriers in your mind which have stopped you from achieving all you
could in the past, you will be well on your way to stepping up to your own success.

A word about the Science and Art of Success:

Before we get to list of the 10 Keys to the Kingdom of Success, you should also understand
something about the art of success.

Science and art apply differently to our methods of achieving success. The science lays out
the principles that we can observe. The art is how the principles play out in a particular life
or project. In other words, the art is the production of the results we achieve by applying the
principles. The science tells of the ways it took to get to the results. You can read a lot more
about these concepts in my series of e-books, Success Stories: The Science and Art of
Success available on our website. But for now, just be aware that the science as applied,
plus some additional tools, creates the art of success.

The following keys to success are derived from the study of hundreds of success stories.
The biographies of successful people show us the way to real success and achievement.
Reading and studying the stories of successful people from the past and the present are
powerful ways to learn and understand exactly what we must do in order to achieve success
in our own lives.

Although many of these success stories reveal extraordinary talents, one doesn’t need to
have extraordinary talent in order to succeed in achieving the goals we have set for
ourselves. In addition, remember this: many of the remarkable success stories we can learn
about involved a person who took a limitation or a disability and achieved success either in
spite or it or because of it. Information about and links to additional reading on these
astonishing life stories can be found at the end of this article.

Here are the 10 Keys to the Kingdom of Success:


Key #1: You can do whatever you dream you can do.


In order to succeed, you must believe in yourself. This may sound obvious, but it is
something we have to remind ourselves of every day. Why is this a Key to Success?
Because in our every day lives, our dreams can get lost in the shuffle. We have
responsibilities to other people, our communities and churches, our “day jobs”—if we are
still lucky enough to have one in today’s economy. We think about our scant resources,
rarely realizing that in this abundant universe, the things that we need will be provided.

In your dreams, you have a picture of who you can be and what you can achieve. Those
dreams are there in your mind and heart for a very important reason. Your human mind
creates visual pictures of your most cherished goals and how it would be if you
accomplished them. In our dreams, we see changes to our lives as they are. In our dreams,
we can change our lives into a new reality which we deeply want to create. The most
important key you can learn today is simply this: you can do it!

When your mind creates a picture, taking all your best God-given gifts together, and
projecting them into the best new reality possible for you to achieve, everything else, really,
will fall into place. I don’t mean to make that sound easy, because it is not—it takes hard
work, and focus, and organization, and other tools like motivation, inspiration, coaching
yourself and being coached and encouraged by others. But at the beginning, there is the
vision. All else flows from that first key.


Key #2:  The mind is the energizing force of all action.


This second key is the reason that the first one is true. I do not have the space in this
introductory article to explain the research related to how the brain works. There is a wealth
of information out there which you will be able to access. But you need not be a scientist or
a physician to know this: if you don’t think it, your body won’t do it! Your brain is the
command center of your body.

While many functions of the human body are automatic (blood flow, for example) or semi-
automatic (breathing, for example), the higher bodily functions involve thinking first and
moving second. But much more than that: thinking is a function of mind and consciousness,
the spiritual parts of the physical brain. The mind is a huge, largely hidden reservoir of
energy which may be tapped at any time. All it takes is an understanding of that principle
and putting your mind to the task of success in order to achieve it in any of your projects.

In fact, scientists believe that every thought whether acted upon in the present or past or not
creates energy which is stored in the unconscious or subconscious mind. The key to that
vast warehouse is understanding the true power and energizing force of your dreams and
thoughts. It is especially important that you know that you can access this vast reservoir. In
my series of e-books Success Stories: The Science and Art of Success you can learn
about this in more detail and learn the tools that you need to use to access this special
energy resource.


Key #3: The vision is the motivating force of all action.


We have briefly discussed the importance of dreams in Key #1, and how your mind
empowers you to work towards them in Key #2. But what is your motivation for doing all that
is necessary, including the hard work, in order to make your dreams your living reality? It is
the specific vision of how your new reality, your success in achieving your dreams, will
change your life and make you happy, wealthy, fulfilled, generous—and re-energized for the
next project or stage of life. Motivation and inspiration are driving forces in all of our actions.
They are derived from the vision in our mind.

Most successful people can tell you that the vision of what could be their new lives drove
them on to succeed and was the key to unlocking the doors which kept them out of the
kingdom. Some of them found pictures of what they wanted and posted them around their
computers or offices. These were their “Some Day” dreams. Writers in tiny hot rooms in
attics across the centuries have envisioned their by-lines in the finest magazines and books
and pictured themselves sought after for autographs in the finest restaurants. Singers and
musicians of all ages have envisioned gold-crested stages and burgundy drapes as they
bowed deeply to ovations of grateful fans uplifted by their art and skill. Business owners
and entrepreneurs have envisioned going interstate, national, and then global with their
wares, and tapping into the great resources presenting themselves in new media and
developing countries.

All of these successful people have had that ability in common: the vision of a future of their
own design and creation. The vision was real to each of them—they could feel it, taste it,
see it, touch it. This is an important key for you. The more details you can put into your
vision, the more strongly it will draw you to it, day by day, step by step.


Key #4: Taking action to reach your dreams creates synergy.


Once you have your dream (Key #1), your mind (Key #2), and your vision (Key #3) aligned
and accessible to you in your plan for success, you must, of course, take action. If you have
done nothing yet on a dream that  you have in the back of your mind, do this brief mental
exercise as a key to your understanding how this works:  

Bring your dream to the front of your mind. Look in the mirror and say: “I want to do this. I
know I can do this. I will do this.” Picture yourself at the top of the mountain—or at the top
step of the tower of your palace in the kingdom of success; picture yourself  looking back
down at the joyous journey you have just completed. Write down in every detail what it is you
want to do and how great it will be if you can do it. Later, you will be able to write out your
action plan, step by step and put deadlines in your calendar. For now, hold the picture and
remember the emotions you felt at being way up there.

I promise you this: if you understand these keys and follow certain steps in an action plan
for achieving your success, you will be amazed at how your body, mind, and soul will work
together for you to place you right there at the top of that tower.

Synergy is that powerful force of gathering up and multiplying all the forces as they work
together to nurture your creams and create your new reality. You will go along the critical
continuum from thinking, to planning, to acting, and back again and again until every part of
your dream is accomplished. As each step is taken, you will find that you have more
energy, more enthusiasm, and more exuberance for the next.


Key #5: Everything you need for success is within you.


As human beings, we were born with every single thing we needed to grow from a tiny little
seed to a big complicated adult. That is true from the moment of conception. We are who
we are from the very beginning. It is quite amazing to consider. Every hair on our heads,
every cell and organ and muscle and tendon, the color of our eyes and skin, the abilities to
move and think and breathe, all of it is in there. And each one of us is created uniquely and
for a purpose.

Whether you believe in divine will or not, you have probably often felt that you were created
for some higher or greater purpose than you have achieved so far—that is why you
downloaded this article. You are seeking out the ways to identify your higher purpose and
take action toward it.

You may be just starting out on life’s journey or you may have a new decade starting where
you are moving into a new stage of life and want to do something more. Whatever your
situation, be assured that there are dozens of success stories you can learn from and gain
inspiration and motivation from as well. There are early risers and late bloomers all around
us now and throughout the ages in the past. You will see how they come alive for you and
how you will see yourself in some of their situations.

Your success story is waiting to be written. Your new reality is waiting to be nurtured. You
can learn how by studying the biographies of successful people.  


Key #6: The science of success overcomes all obstacles.


No matter what obstacles you face—or think you face—in your life, the Keys to the
Kingdom of Success will overcome them. You might be asking yourself, “How can that be
so? Can it be that easy?” Understand first that it will only be “easy” if you have incorporated
the Keys so deeply into your mind that what you saw as obstacles before now appear to
you to be opportunities for self-growth and self-development that not only overcome the
obstacles but re-define them. Someone has said: “Brick walls are there for a reason. They
let us prove how badly we want to succeed.”

Adversity, poverty, persecution, disability, imprisonment, illness, death of loved ones—
there are hundreds of success stories in which all of these obstacles and combinations of
them have been overcome. In fact, in almost all stories about the secrets of success, there
is some element of adversity which draws out the best resources a person has. That is why
we find them so inspiring. Courage, boldness, inspiration, and absolute focus and
concentration have been demanded of a person in order to overcome the obstacle and
keep going until success is achieved.

In one of the success stories from history which I write about in my e-book, Success
Stories: The Science and Art of Success, you will read about a famous author whose father
was one of the New Thinkers in the nineteenth century. The New Thought movement had
grand and ideal dreams of utopia and so forth, but its members were not very practical.
Thus this particular family was dirt poor, and the philosopher father did not feel a calling to
do actual work to support the family.

As even a young teenager, this famous author of the book, Little Women, Louisa May
Alcott, yearned to be able to buy her mother a new winter shawl and her sisters some
bonnets. She knew she had some writing talent, and started boldly sending out her stories
for sale. She said at age 15: “I’m going to be famous, and rich, and happy before I die.”
And so she was. Long before. And she was able to buy her parents a home, and send a
sister off to Paris to study art, and adopt a niece who was left orphaned, and then assigned
all the royalties of one of her books to two orphaned nephews.

Louisa May Alcott had a strong vision and an iron will. She decided what she wanted to do
and then did it. She was ill also, besides being poor all her young life, as a result of working
as an Army nurse during the Civil War and contracting a dreaded infection which caused
her pain and difficulty the rest of her life.

You can see it already, can’t you? How the principles are right here in this story. The dream,
the mind, the energy, the vision, the overcoming of obstacles…it’s all there in a role model
we can follow. You can just see plucky little Louisa saying to herself that it just wouldn’t do
(like Jo in Little Women) and overcoming every obstacle and adversity to make it right. She
wanted to nurture a new reality out of the poor old one to provide her family and herself with
a few creature comforts.  There are hundreds of such success stories, long and short, old
and new, as we discuss in the next Key and in the Success Stories series on our website.


Key #7: The science of success is demonstrated in the success stories of real
people.


Real life success stories are more fascinating than fiction. As with the Alcott story above
and all the other stories I’ve read and written about, they are about real people, like you and
me. These are people who faced hard times and adversity, just like we have, and yet
overcame it all to achieve their dreams. And while we have had some success in our own
lives, we are still searching for something more or something different or something more
meaningful to us than we have ever accomplished before. Even now, at this moment, we
are digging deep down to bring that other old dream to the forefront, so we can make it real
and live it.

Success stories remind us that some of the people that we think of as successful people,
courageous people, people with special inspiration and motivation, were just real people,
people who stepped out boldly to create a new reality for themselves and their families.
These were people who overcame all obstacles to do so.

Think about these stories for a moment:
  • There is the story where a young man who stuttered practiced reading aloud in the
    forest until later on he became one of the most famous and effective orators of all
    time.
  • There is the story where a slave girl defied her free husband and master alike to walk
    up north to freedom and then returned to lead hundreds of others after her, brushing
    off the fears of danger with dreams of freedom.
  • There is the story of a pioneer husband and wife, not knowing if their journey would
    end in the creation of a free country or in a hangman’s noose, sacrificed much of their
    personal lives to achieve the dream of the former.
  • These stories too: the writer who was imprisoned and had to write his important work
    on the untwisted bits of paper that corked his water bottle, or the farm boy who
    scratched his mathematical formulas onto the wooden handle of a plow, or the deaf
    composer of magnificent symphonies, or the slave sculptor who risked death rather
    than hide his glorious work in darkness.

All of these were real people. All of them tell us something about the keys to the kingdom of
success in very human terms. When we read these stories, we know that every one of them
demonstrates something we need to know in order for us to succeed. And we know too that
when we have the keys, we can unlock any door that stands between us and the tower in
our dreams.


Key #8: The art of success is turning your dream into your new reality.


We have thus far talked a lot about the science of success, about observing the principles
and the process of success in success stories from the past and present, and about
applying those principles to achieve success. These are the principles in Keys #1 through
#7. You can read more about all of them and selected biographies of successful people in
Success Stories available on our website.

And now we have come to the art of success. This all-important Key takes you from the
dreaming, thinking, planning, and getting ready stages to the actual production of the
material things you want to send out into the world. The art of success is something different
from the keys and principles we can observe and emulate in the science of success.

Think for a moment about an actual artist, a painter. Perhaps his name is Leonardo. Picture
him in your mind, clad in a smudged smock, gazing at the blank canvas in the early morning
light of the studio, raising the brush and angling his thumb to gain perspectives of size and
shape. His anticipation is palpable.

A painter has wonderful visions of the paintings he wants to produce on the canvas. Before
he does that, he must learn something about colors, and forms, and lighting effects so that
what he creates on the canvas makes his vision a real object for others to admire and
enjoy. The part that is the art of his success in creating the painting is the actual production
of it—it is putting all of the keys together that is the art. The art is the result of the process of
taking all of the artist’s knowledge, talent, dreams, energy, planning, and execution and
putting them together onto that canvas. There are the skills and principles which can be
observed, understood, and learned—that is science. But there is no success until the paint
goes on the canvas in the ways envisioned by the artist. That’s the art.


Key #9: You define your own success.


Beware of the hawkers who want to sell you products that claim to make your success
easy. They are not just on the internet. They are all around us on all of the media. Beware,
too, those who will presume that you are only after the quick buck because that is what they
are after. Most readers who have gotten to this point in the article, I believe, are hoping to
create something lasting and significant, something meaningful that will help other people
around them.

You must define your own success. You don’t have to “buy in” to the money magnet craze or
to the rush for any secrets of success which involve something like demanding money from
the universe and standing back and waiting for it to show up in your mailbox. Quick tricks
and magic buttons are for sale out there, but they forget to mention that for real meaningful
success in this life, you have to choose what success means to you and the do the work
necessary to achieve it.

Your own definition of success may be inner peace or working toward world peace. You
may want to become an important advocate for the poor, for children or for the elderly. I
know of the story of one woman who had a disease and started a support group which is
now a nationally recognized advocacy group. There are several famous actors as well who
turned their illness or disease into an opportunity to speak for thousands upon thousands of
others in testimony to support research funding. Those are real success stories of real
people making a real difference in people’s lives.

On the other hand, there is nothing wrong at all with wanting to earn a good living or even
more than enough to live comfortably. There are very few people, when you think about it,
who make money the end-all and be-all of their lives. We see wealthy celebrities every day
who turn around one day and realize that they have a lot of money that they are not doing
enough with—so they get on an airplane and go build houses in Biloxi or hospitals in Africa,
they start foundations for scholarships and schools. We see fabulously wealthy
entrepreneurs who become some of the most generous philanthropists of all time. And
many of these started out doing good things and giving back to their communities way
before they became so wealthy. These are wonderful success stories about people who
defined success for themselves. You can do it too.


Key #10: You can write your own success story.


Just as you can define what your success will be, you can write your whole success story
and make it come true. There are wonderful and readily available resources on the internet
and in libraries where you can get more information. I recommend that you start at our
website, www.anewsuccess.com, and look for this and other free articles, including the
more detailed free articles “How to Write Your Own Success Story—An Introduction” and
“The Top Ten Tips for Achieving Overall Life Success.”

Motivation is key to writing your own success story. You have to have a reason to get up
every day and do the things necessary to achieve what you want. As my children were
growing up, I had motivational and inspirational sayings posted on the fridge. My favorite of
all was this one by Goethe (feel free to copy, paste, enlarge, and post)—it has been as
helpful to me all my life as I hope it has been for them:

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it;
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”

I have found this saying to be very inspirational and motivational. It tells us to get out there
and get started on making a better world and a new reality and not to worry if some of our
efforts may not seem immediately successful. Many famous and successful people will tell
you that failures are often opportunities in disguise and that brick walls force you to take a
different path or jump over.

You have the power to write your own success story and to turn your dreams into your new
reality. If you learn and understand these top tips for success and try to apply them in your
own life, you will be writing your success story as you go. Start with your dream, make the
plan, take action…and you are on your way.

Additional articles and books and tools about these keys, principles and concepts are
available. Here I have just given you a brief summary of the most important keys which you
can use in planning out and implementing your own plan for success. These are just the tips
of the icebergs. There are resources which you will find on our website for free or low-cost
at www.anewsuccess.com.  We have also compiled links to other internet resources which
we have found to be of value. I hope you will visit us soon.
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