{"id":8,"date":"2013-09-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-11T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jdwest\/the-power-to-succeed\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T22:30:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T22:30:22","slug":"the-power-to-succeed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jdwest\/the-power-to-succeed\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power to Succeed"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Power to Succeed<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s amazing how we fool ourselves\u2026 while at the same time believing we are doing what\u2019s best.
\nLet me give you an example.
\nI overheard a guy telling a group of friends, over drinks, how he had become fed-up with work.
\nGuys being guys, they immediately started to come up with options to fix the problem \u2013 ideas like changing company and changing jobs.
\nThat was when the guy got all logical\u2026
\n\u2018Yeah, but I need to pay the mortgage and my kid\u2019s education and we\u2019ve got a holiday planned for the Bahamas and\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

I interrupted. \u2018How much do you need?\u2019
\n\u2018A hundred grand a year,\u2019 he replied.
\n\u2018What\u2019s more important,\u2019 I asked, \u2018your happiness or the money?\u2019<\/p>\n

Of course he said happiness. <\/p>\n

Then he got all logical again.
\n\u2018But I can\u2019t be happy unless I can pay the mortgage and give my kids the best and have great holidays.\u2019
\n\u2018How many hours do you work?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Around fifty.\u2019
\n\u2018And how do you feel when you get home?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Tired.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018What would your kids prefer, a father who is worn out for forty eight weeks of the year but has four weeks to entertain them per year or a dad who is a real Dad all year round?\u2019<\/p>\n

The conversation went on, me questioning, him justifying what he perceived as logic.
\nYet it\u2019s not logic, is it?
\nIt\u2019s not logic to deny your heart\u2019s desire to change life when it\u2019s hurting you. The mortgage, the kid\u2019s education, the holidays are just stuff. <\/p>\n

And, like most people find after a heart attack or a divorce or an accident, is that this \u2018stuff\u2019 is not that important.
\nWhat\u2019s important is something else\u2026<\/p>\n

Life!<\/p>\n

The problem is we got \u201cConditioned Logic\u201d \u2013
\n\u201clogic\u201d transferred to us by society: friends, family, schools, college, the media, religion etc. <\/p>\n

We took it all on and felt we had to behave in a \u201cconditioned\u201d way.
\nThe repetition of that conditioning is fine for a while, but when we end up doing something we don\u2019t love, each time we do it takes a little of the soul away.
\nLet me put it another way.<\/p>\n

What gives you the power<\/em> to succeed is what you perceive to be logic. Real power<\/ins> is not necessarily doing what society dictates. Real power<\/em> is often something else.
\nIt is that, knowing that comes from nowhere to tell you, you must do something different.<\/p>\n

It might seem logical to have the house, the car, the private education, the holiday, but is it powerful. <\/p>\n

What is powerful is, to say I am not happy and things must change;
\nI\u2019m not killing myself for forty-eight weeks just for four weeks of pleasure;
\nI\u2019m not excited by my work and I\u2019m willing to live in a smaller home if it means I can have more peace, less stress and fall back in love with my partner.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not all about the stuff, is it?
\nIt\u2019s about happiness and love;
\nhappiness and love of your partner;
\nhappiness and love of your children and family;
\nhappiness and love of your work.
\nIf you have that then you have it all.<\/p>\n

Now that\u2019s the power to succeed!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Does your current way of living support that?<\/a><\/p>\n

by, Neil Millar<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Power to Succeed It\u2019s amazing how we fool ourselves\u2026 while at the same time believing we are doing what\u2019s best. Let me give you an example. I overheard a guy telling a group of friends, over drinks, how he had become fed-up with work. Guys being guys, they immediately started to come up with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2001,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,3],"tags":[6,41,42,43],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-heart-warming","category-self-help-improvement","tag-empower","tag-love","tag-power","tag-succeed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jdwest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jdwest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jdwest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jdwest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2001"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jdwest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jdwest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jdwest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions\/27"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jdwest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jdwest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/jdwest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}