“I will never be an underrated pen. I will never dabble with many styles using my brush and end up a passionate pauper.” These were my commitments a few years ago.
After 17 years of mentoring business mentoring in a university in Iloilo City—the height of my productive career—I resigned from a secure job. I came back to my home province of Bohol to start anew.
With very few opportunities in my province, the only way to become financially independent is by pursuing my dreams with a mindset of a successful entrepreneur, not just an employee.
To do this, I need successful mentors. I have watched their videos and read their books.
One of my favorite mentors is Brian Tracy.
But who is he, so I can assure myself that I have chosen an excellent coach?
Tracy is a best-selling author who has written 70 books. You hear it: 70. He is a consultant of a thousand big corporations, including IBM and Pepsico. He must be from big universities and raised with a silver spoon?
It will surprise you that he was a drop-out.
So what makes Tracy go from nothing to sculpting his way into international prominence with a 7-figure income, living happily in all aspects? It must be what he learned and applied. Among these are his Cs of success.
Let me share his 7 Cs. If we apply them, I’m sure we will become more like him.
The first is clarity. We need to be clear about what we want and how to get there. Every year, we should have a major goal and 10 supporting goals. These goals should be in writing. If not hand-written, we don’t remember them.
After writing these goals, have a list of actions to implement them.
To apply Tracy’s principle of clarity, I wrote these goals:
a) I win the Metrobank Art and Design Excellence in sculpture 2022.
b) I enroll in Copyblogger content writing program for three to four months.
With these goals in mind, I take action every day to achieve them.
After clarity, the next C of success is confidence. By definition, it means becoming good at what we do. We need to ask: “What are the skills I need to be at the top of my profession?”
Imitating exemplars helps us a lot. To be more confident, I need to spend more hours becoming good at what I do compared to the average professionals.
Aware of this principle, I saved $499 to enroll in a copywriting course by the American Writers and Artists Institute. I also spend three to four hours every day sculpting and painting to prepare for my exhibitions.
Having these in my daily activities is, however, not enough.
I need the third C of success—concentration. This refers to the ability to focus on one task at a time until it’s done. And this includes the need to discipline ourselves not to do other tasks and avoid any form of distractions.
In this social media and hyped marketing era, it is hard to focus. So in order to apply the principle of focus, I keep away from my cell phone when I am writing or doing another artwork. I do the most challenging and most important task in the first hours of the morning.
After concentration, the next C for success is knowing the constraints. I ask: “what slows me down in attaining my goals?”
I recently realize copywriting lessons that seem to quiz me ahead of the complete information given have intimidated me.
For sales people, it must be the time they talk to prospects. For writers, it might be their fear of rejection so that they do not submit query letters to publishers.
If we know our constraints, let us face them and decide to reboot.
Now, let’s consider another C, which is continuous learning. Millionaires spend 60 to 90 minutes every day reading books about their fields. They finish about 60 books per year. Warren Buffet, the greatest investor of our generation, reads 500 pages a day.
I apply continuous learning by attending webinars if I have the chance. Two times, I woke up at three in the morning to catch up with a summit.
Aside from continuous learning, leaders shine because of their commitment—the next C of success. This refers to what we commit to ourselves and to others. It applies to a blogger who writes an article every week to make himself visible to his target audience.
After reading tips on Instagram for artists, I committed to post my work-in-progress or artwork every 8 p.m. Failing to be consistent can mean difficulty in establishing followers and prospect clients.
The last C of success is courage. This comes in two ways: courage to begin something and courage to continue what we do. We must have courage to start the task even if we are not completely prepared for it. Taking action with imperfect conditions is courage. We must have courage to persevere, even with naysayers and financial limits, until we reach our goals.
I have just shared the 7 Cs by Tracy. If we remember and apply them, we will not be serendipities in ink and paper. We will be more successful in our professions as writers and artists.
I have not yet reached my goal of financial independence and sponsoring a scholar, but I am getting closer to it every day.
Chinkee Tan, one of the success coaches in our country, shared: “If you want to increase your income, have a bigger wallet.” The wallet refers to our preparation and mindset. This is what the 7 Cs cover.
Cheers to our success, everyone.
