HOW TO BE A R.E.A.L. SUCCESS | Success 1

Today I would like to talk to you about how to be a real success? Earl Wilson said this, success is simply a matter of luck ask any failure.

Success is, #1; knowing my purpose in life, it's just that simple. Success is knowing what I should be doing, because I run into people all the time they've never discovered the purpose I guess I could ask the question this way what would it profit you if you worked all of your life worked hard climbing the ladder of success only to find out that when you got to the top that ladder was leaning against the wrong building and I see that happen all the time, people working hard but never knowing what their purpose is, but success is more than just knowing my purpose in life.

Secondly, it's growing, growing to my maximum potential. I believe growth is happiness and what I have discovered is that people that grow are the happiest, most fulfilled people on earth, you see your potential is what God has given you and what you do with that potential is your gift back to him.

Finally, number three; sowing seeds that benefit others. In other words I believe it's impossible to be successful without sowing seeds into the lives of other people, helping other people, adding value to their life.

What I have discovered is I have studied success, as I have talked to successful people, as I have hung around with them, I have discovered that successful people are able to do four things effectively. That's why I call this lesson how to be a REAL success. R. E. A. L., each letter is a hook that helps us remember the four things we need to do to be successful.

R stands for relationships: What I have discovered is this, successful people get along with people or I guess the best way I could say it to you is people won't go along with you if they can't get along with you, think about it, don't we all know some people that are hard to get along with, come on let's do a little survey here, how many of you know at least one person that's difficult to get along with, oh yeah you well you got your got their face right now in your mind, you've got oh my goodness yeah yeah. How many of you are seated beside that person right now? now the first question was a relationship question, the second question was an IQ question, you hear me okay? okay, in your notes, when asked that one single characteristic is most needed by those in leadership positions, most chief executives of major companies replied the ability to work with people. Teddy Roosevelt said the most important single ingredient to the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people, in actual studies of leadership in American business it has been proven that the average executive spends 3/4 of his or her working day dealing with people, that's why Stanford research has told us that success is 87% people knowledge and 13% product knowledge, 87% of your success or my success is going to be in our ability to get along with people and I think about this all the time because how much time do we spend equipping and training people in the area of product and how much time do we spend training and equipping people and our employees in the area of dealing with people? 87% of your success is going to be people knowledge 13% product knowledge in your notes, most people this is a huge statement, can trace their successes and failures to the relationships in their lives, as I've talked with people, if I`ve as I've counseled them, as I have worked with people I have found that almost everybody will look at their successes and failures and basically say it was attached to a relationship that I had within my life, and I have discovered in the area of relationships that there are four kinds of people, there are some people that add to our lives in that true? they just add value to your lives when we think about it we say oh my goodness this is good, some people add, and then secondly some people subtract from our lives, don't we know people like that, huh come on now, know somebody that they just kind of take a little bit out of you every time you see them, you know what I'm saying, huh yeah you're in the parking lot in there, they're there in the parking lot and they see you get out of the car and that need a minute they're five rows over but they're coming towards you, you know I'm saying, and as they come toward you, you could just feel energy being sucked out of your body, you know I mean, it's kind of your life is ebbing away, you know what I'm talking about, some people add, some people subtract, hey watch this one, some people multiply some people do more than add value to you and me some people absolutely multiply, and then there are those who divide, so since relationships are so important in our being a success, what I would like to share with you is what I call some relationship rules, such as rule number one love and accept yourself, love and accept yourself because you see this is a fact the only relationship in your life that is continued and therefore most important is with yourself, and the first person you need to learn to get along with is you, yourself, because I know people who never have been able to get along with themselves and guess what if you cannot get along with yourself, you can't get along with anyone else, this is a common thread through people who have relationship issues, I guarantee you, they have a difficult time accepting and loving and caring for themselves, relationship rule number two, put energy into being likable, and the reason I say that is it takes energy to be likable, it takes energy to smile, it takes energy to add value to people, it takes energy to look at a person and get on their ground and ask questions that will interest them and stay where they are, so you got to put energy into being likable, I call this charisma, people with charisma what they do is they put the other person ahead of themselves, so when they talk to the other person they talk about their interests, their hobbies, things that they like to say, things that they like to do, in other words, when you want to be likeable if you want to have charisma put others before yourself, people that lack charisma what do they want to do, they want to talk about themselves, they want to talk about what they've got, isn't that true? now when I say put energy into being likeable, for some of you it's going to take more energy than others, I am not trying to be nasty, but there are some people that have natural type of people skills and people leanings and there are some people that don't and so what I'm saying to you is, if you don't, don't make it an excuse, don't say well I'm just not a people person and so therefore I just will go through life not liking people, because it's going to keep you from being a success, that's a fact, so what I want you to do is, put energy into being likable, I smile a lot, people look at my smile they say, well John you know you just smile all the time, well I didn't natural, I wasn't naturally born with this smile? I mean I didn't come out of my mother's womb and look at the doctor and say have a good day, I was about I don't know but probably I sprout seven or eight, one day I looked in the mirror I looked right in the mirror and I said to myself Maxwell you are not a good looking dude, what are we gonna do with a face like this, and then I smiled, I said oh that's better, it didn't heal me but it helped me, try it, try it, relationship rule number three, remember their names, everybody's grown in in the audience aw remember their names, it's not my gift, it's not my gift either and reason is it's not my gift it's because what happens to you what happens to me many many times, is people meet us somewhere and they're gone and they come back maybe a few days later and and we we weren't able to hold that face with the name long enough isn't that true? boy if we could just have held that face and put a name on that and study that we could remember their names, that's how I learned to remember names literally I've taken polaroid cameras before and I've had people I've taken pictures of people and put their name right on the Polaroid picture so that I could look at the picture and I could look at the name and and all of a sudden I'd say hey I've got it, in fact I I was just recently with the business lady and she said I have a hard time remembering names and her company and her divisions growing, and I said take pictures, take pictures, put their name there, study those pictures, you'll remember those names! relationship rule number four, focus on their interest, it's absolutely amazing what happens when you and I focus on the interests of people, focus on their interests, put yourselves in their shoes, understand what they like because every person every person has what I call a key to their life, every person, and so what I have discovered is you have to discover the keys, for example in our company what we do is as many times we'll take about 50 or 60 cards of things that would be of interest to people, you know family, integrity, just things that would be values, and what we do is we give them all those cards and we say okay, I want you to get down to the sixth most important cards in that stack, and then we whittle it down, whittle it down to three and then finally down to two and we make it out of 60 cards we make a person select the two things that they value the very most, now as a leader that's a huge exercise, if you had a team of ten, think about it for a moment, and you had them go through that exercise, and they ended up with the two most important values on that table, as a leader you would begin to understand what the key to their life is, you would really begin to understand what they love, what they care for, what they value, what they consider is important, what is a priority in their life...that's the exercise and the relationship rule is very simple, focus on their interest, number five, request the help of others, I have discovered if you really want to connect with people ask them to help you, I mean think about it, you're in a strange town and you're trying to find directions and you roll down the window and a stranger you just say, hey I'm lost could you help me? I mean haven't you I have seen strangers stop in the middle of an of traffic, stop the whole traffic create a traffic jam, giving you direction you know what I'm saying, and when they give you directions, they said well let me repeating one more time, and then they always say you can't miss it, that's a little overstatement right there, why is it that people love to stop traffic and stop whatever they're doing and interrupt their life to help you with direction is very simple, when you ask them to help you with directions they know that, they know something you don't know, and that creates value in their lives, all of a sudden they're saying I'm helping, I'm adding value this is important, and that's what I want to encourage you to do in relationships, ask people to help you, I have discovered especially, if I'm having a relationship issue with somebody that I really need to get along with, maybe it's somebody on my team, what I have discovered, I've done this for many many years, I found it to work true almost every time, if I sit down with him and say to them, hey you're good at this, you're better at it than I am, I need your help, what would you do in this situation? I have found that if I ask them to help me and I become vulnerable to them and especially if they give me some advice that I can follow so that I can give them credit two, three, four or five days later, I have found that that is huge in helping in the area of relationships, relationship rule number six, add value to people, this is just a simple relationship rule but it works, and I have discovered that the way to add value to people is three ways, number one, you have to truly value people, it's just that simple, you and I will not continually add value to people that we truly don't value, you know what, if you and I do not value people, do you know what happens every time? if we do not truly value people we`ll begin to take advantage of them, we`ll begin to manipulate them, we'll begin to kind of with a little bit of disgust that I've got to keep working with those people, but if we truly valued those people, it takes our communication with them up to a whole new level, secondly if you want to add value to people we have to make ourselves more valuable, in other words we have to get better and the reason we have to get better is because the leader has to stay in front and and the only way the leader can stay in front is for that leader to be able to share things with others that help those people, you see when I run out of resources, and when I run out of things to say, and when I run out of vision and direction somebody's gonna pass me, so the only way I can keep adding value to you is to make myself more valuable, I've got to keep learning, so I can pass it on to you, I've got to keep sharing with you so that I can add value to you, and number three, we add value to people when we know and relate to what they value, now that goes back to what I said a moment ago when I talked about knowing keys to people's lives and understanding where they are, and the moment that I know and relate to what you value I can really add value to you, and by the way put in your notes this, because this is key, the key to knowing and relating to what you value is listening, asking questions and listening, and what I have discovered is the most successful leaders are very good listeners, relationship rule number seven, relationship rule number seven is follow the 101 percent principle, now you say John what's the 101 percent principle? it's very simple, it`s in your notes, find the one percent that you agree on and give it 100 percent of your! yeah! now, do you know what we do? we do the exactly opposite, now come on now, let's just fess up right now this is confession time, many people, don't you know people who find the 1% they disagree on and they give it a hundred percent of their effort, I mean they just love to argue, they love to, they just love to stir things up, now here's what I'm telling you, in relationship rules we all have things that we disagree on with others, we all have points of contention and what I often try to do is just find the one percent that you agree on and start there, get what I call common ground, because what I have discovered is that people that do not relate with others have never established common ground, so find that thing that you agree on, the thing that you enjoy, the thing that you both are committed to, and stay right there, and give that 100% of your effort, what I've discovered is, slowly that common ground begins to increase, number eight, in fact relationship rule number eight is very similar to number seven, love people more than opinions, I know a lot of individuals that love opinions more than people, can I say this to you, give it up, just give it up, one of the most important rules I ever learned in marriage is give it up, just give it up, when I first got married, I mean I every issue you and let's well let it, and for the first two years I I wanted to win, I mean and what I would I would win my, but with Margaret it was like touchdown, you know oh you know touchdown, and I love a senator less not touchdown, in fact one of my greatest errors in relationships that I had to learn in my marriage was that you don't build a great marriage by winning every argument, you really build a great marriage by saying it's your turn, will do what you want to do, I'll give up my rights, I'm sorry, I was wrong, let's try it over again, when I began to take that kind of spirit and kind of attitude our marriage really begin to get strong, relationship rule number nine, follow the Golden Rule, this is so simple but it really works, just follow the Golden Rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto yourself, you know what I've discovered, I've discovered if we would every time we have to make a decision, stop long enough in that decision to put ourselves in the other person's shoes, and ask if I was on the other side, how would I like to be treated? I wrote a book titled there's no such thing that's business ethics, and in that book basically we built ethics on the golden rule, and when I was on CNBC they asked me they said how do you really make sure you're ethical? I said it's very simple, just ask yourself, if I were on the other side, I know I'm an owner of a business I know that I could make a decision, that's going to help me, maybe make millions, but if I were on the other side, if I were that secretary and then in that cubicle my office what I want the person above me to make that decision and is that the right thing to do, the golden rule is golden! and number ten, the tenth relationship rule is seek out resources to help you grow in your relationship skills, I would just encourage you that as we talked through the REAL of success, then I will always have resources there for you, some of them will be books that I've written but a lot of times I'll try to steer you to resources of other people, because I just want you to to get better in this area, and then you see there's also a relationship inventory that you can take on your own, questions to ask yourself one being always, five being never, just kind of go through there, you know what you're gonna find? you're gonna find you do good in some areas, you gonna find you do poorly in some areas, it's okay, it's okay, don't worry about it, here's what I want you to understand, take the inventory and check on yourself and then begin to be stronger in relationships because your ability to relate with people is one of the four keys to success. the second key to success is equipping I have discovered that people that are successful have the ability to take and equip and train other people in fact in your notes I want to say it this way great leaders grow their vision from me to we great leaders understand that they need to take the vision that they have and they need to be able to train and equip others and this is the only way they can ever compound their vision let me just read something to you it's not in your notes but this kind of tells you I think the experience all of us have had in equiptment how many let me before I read this to you how many of you have trained somebody equipped somebody poured your life into somebody develop somebody gave them your best shot only to find out that they left they quit they did something stupid how many of you have ever had a bad experience equipping somebody oh here we go hundred percent in the audience again how many of you are seated beside that person now you're learning you're learning that second question it's always a trick question okay here let me read this to you this just describes every one of us and how we at times try to pour our life into somebody and it just doesn't work as nearly everyone knows an executive has practically nothing to do except to decide what is to be done tell somebody to do it to listen to reasons why it should not be done why it should be done by someone else or why it should be done in a different way to follow up to see if the thing has been done to discover that it has not to inquire why to listen to excuses from the person who should have done it to follow up again to see if things have been done only to discover that it has been done incorrectly to point out how it should have been done to conclude that as long as it has been that it may as well be left where it is to wonder if it's not time to get rid of a person who cannot do a thing right to reflect that he probably has a wife and a large family and it certainly any successor would be just bad or maybe even worse to consider how much simpler and better the thing would have been done if one would had done it oneself in the first place to reflect sadly that one could have done it right in 20 minutes and as things turned out one has had to spend two days to find out why it's taken three weeks for someone else to do it wrong have we been there before we've all been there now when I talk about equipping people in training people one of the first responses I get from others is John this is just not easy and it really isn't this is very difficult so I want to talk to you about why people fail to equip other people because I just see them do it constantly number one it's hard work equipping people is not easy I have discovered that when it comes to equipment in training people people don't stay in place they move they don't always stay where we put him it aren't there times we can just say okay don't chase anything just do this just like it is what my backgrounds theology and and so for my several years I was a pastor and when I graduated from theological school I came back to my college ten years later when I came back I saw Herman I hadn't seen Herman for 10 years we graduated together and he went his way in a different state than I did and he was a pastor and I was a pastor and so I I said Herman how's it going how's the pastoring going he said well I'm not pastor anymore so well Herman what are you doing so well I'm a funeral director so why did you make the change he sold John that's easy he said in when I was pastor I had to counsel with people oh my goodness I mean it take Joey had an alcohol problem I'm working with him a couple years he still really has an alcohol problem there's Suzy and Danny and they had a marriage problem worked with them for over two years tried to keep their marriage together he said they ended up getting divorced he says she's very discouraged he said the thing I love about my job now he said when I straighten him out now they stay straight well you and I both know Hugh and I both know the only people that stay straight are dead people and so I guess unless you have an organization with a bunch of dead people you know what I'm saying they're going to move on you and when they move on yet doesn't always turn out right and so equip means hard work number two we underestimate people one of the reasons we fail to equip others is because we truly underestimate what they can do whenever I find somebody that doesn't spend time training developing and working with others beneath the reason why they don't is almost always an underestimation of what other people can do and when you underestimate what people can do and how they can grow and what they can become and how they can develop I will promise you this you won't spend much time training developing it number three we enjoy doing the tasks ourselves one of the reasons we failed to equip people is because there are just some things we love to do isn't that true in fact this was a huge transition for me as I grew up as a leader because I found that there were a lot of things I really just enjoyed doing one of the most important days of my life was when I realized that if I was going to keep being successful if I was going to keep growing if I was going to be able to do more and be more than I ever was one of the most important days of my life was this when I realized that I was going to have to give up things that I really enjoyed doing that somebody else could do sometimes even much better than me so that I could begin to do the things that I should be doing when I got off of the enjoyment page - the priority page when I got off of this is what I like to do - this is what I should do and this is where the return is and this is where the profit is wow that was only a mature day in my leadership it was a breakthrough day number four we receive ego strength from needed there's something about the ego fulfillment and ego strength we have when people just basically say you know I just really need you or how a house this one we could have never made it without you oh my goodness if you wouldn't have been here whoo down the tubes we would have gone now let me just say something to you it's not true trust me my name is John I'm your friend it's not true and if you think if you just think that somehow you have to be there and it isn't going to happen unless you're there and the world is kind of waiting for your decision just die you'll find out very quickly everything goes on that just does I remember when many years ago well they'd had a funeral that had a nice memorial service and a lot of friends would have come and said nice things about me but I know how it happened 30 minutes after they put me in the ground they're back at some reception hall the biggest question on people's mind is where is the potato salad and I just laughed I laughed it myself this was very good therapy for me I just want you to laugh at yourself because I want you to understand this because it is a fact that when people say oh we couldn't do without you that's stroke in the ego but it isn't reality another reason we fail to equip others number five is that we are in the habit of doing everything I think a lot of times we fail to equip others because it truly is a habit with us we're just in the habit of doing things and because we're in the habit of doing things what do we do we just keep doing things it's just sometimes a habit in our life number six this is big a lot of times we fail to equip others because we want to keep control I have discovered that people that are control individuals sometimes we call them control freaks okay people that really have to have the last say it have to make sure that's done my way and to be honest with you people that have to be in control most of time are highly insecure in fact you could almost go to the bank on this the more person a person has to be in control normally the more insecure that person is but I want to tell you this if you're one of those kind of people you have to know everything have to touch everything have to have your say in everything how to tell people exactly how it has to be done if it's not done your way you're in trouble let me just tell you this you'll always have a have a difficulty equipping and training and developing people and the reasons you'll have a difficulty in this area is because you just won't let go that's why in the laws of leadership the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership when I talk about the law of empowerment you know see secure people give power away only secure people give power away insecure people control hold on to it protect it defend it put a fence around it memorialize it have a tradition every year to go back and visit it I need not go any farther number seven another reason that we sometimes fail to equip others if we don't notice the leadership potential and those around us and this is so vital this is so key I see this happen all the time now I've already talked about the fact that we underestimate people and that's one of the reasons we don't sometimes equip people but what is really sad is we not only sometimes underestimate what people could do but we underestimate how well they can lead others now this is key it's wonderful when you train a person to do their job it's wonderful when you equip them to do whatever they are supposed to function in but it's even more wonderful when you begin to develop people you not only train them to do their job but what you really do is that you help them understand that they could become a leader because every time you train somebody to do a job you fill a job every time you train somebody to be a leader now all of a sudden they have the ability to reproduce themselves and develop others and train others and that's where that's where the multiplication begins and I say that because this was a miserable failure in the beginning part of my life I I didn't see other people whose leaders I kind of had this idea that I was the leader and everybody was to follow me and I kind of had this wrong concept to follow the leader game and I'll do this and you follow me and and I always do it better than you but but but you can follow me quote you can touch the hem of my garment but that's about as far as it went and I can tell you it was a huge mistake and in beginning years I didn't develop any leaders because I didn't think anyone had leadership potential and what a big mistake that was don't make that mistake don't don't do that understand that that even if a person quote isn't a born leader they can learn to lead and every time you teach a person to lead you now not add value to your business you not now just add value to your and bottom-line profits you begin to multiply them now in your notes I have here for you an equipping inventory that you could look again and go through now I want you to do that always on your own and we're not taking time today to do that but I always want to make sure that you that you do that what I want to do is I talk about equipping for a few more minutes is I want to talk to you about a couple of teamwork laws because this is very important in fact I wrote a book you ought to get it it's entitled teamwork makes the dream work because I have discovered that's exactly the truth if you really want your dream to work you got to hit your team to work in fact if you don't have a team that works you don't have a dream that's going to work you have a nightmare and I know a lot of people that have a big dream and a small team and that's a gap that you never want to have so let me give you a couple of teamwork laws that will help you understand what I consider to be the value of equipping other people for example there here's a teamwork law the law of significance the law of significance says one is too small of a number to achieve greatness this is a fantastic law one is too small of a number to achieve greatness I run people all the time who seemingly think that they can do it on their own in fact people come up to me they'll say well you know I'm a self-made man and I know they want me to congratulate them but whenever they tell me they're self-made man I was looking at and say oh that's too bad because you see if you truly have made everything yourself you've not made much that's an absolute fact the people that really do something significant are those who include others in fact let me throw a challenge out to every one of you today this is a challenge for you to just grab hold up for a moment name one significant event in history that was accomplished by just one person without the help of anyone else now I can promise you if you do that if you go there I can promise you you're not going to be able to name that person in fact I was in where was it Joburg South Africa a few years ago doing a large business conference probably 5,000 people and I was teaching this law of teamwork and I threw out that challenge I will never forget a guy about halfway up in the balcony yelled out he said Charles Lindbergh Charles Lindbergh he crossed the Atlantic by himself I said that's true but Ryan aeronautical engineering built the plane and ten millionaires financed the trip any other suggestions what he realized of course and what everybody realized that day was one is too small of a number to achieve greatness you cannot do it on your own one cannot multiply you have to have a group you have to have a team and what I have discovered is this if you want to have a great idea you have to have several good ideas great ideas aren't born or birthed in a vacuum nobody ever got up one morning oh great idea no they may be got up and said good idea but what you do is when you bring other people in with a good idea and you begin to share that good idea with others what happens all of a sudden you get five good ideas and when you get five or six good ideas what happens now the synergies in the room and out of five or six good ideas guess what a great idea is birthed and that's where you want to go and that's the value of teamwork that's the value of bringing people together as a team it'll take you to a much higher level I had somebody ask me that they said how do I know if I have a good team I said it's very simple if you have a good team every time you throw an idea out of them they give you a better idea back if you have a good team every time you you suggest something they'll suggest something at a higher level what I have discovered and it's an absolute fact is that people the right people will always make you and me better here's what I say one of us is not as smart as all of us and that's the value of understanding equipping training and building together a team let me give you one more teamwork law these are taken from my book the 17 laws of teamwork this is the law of Mount Ayr and as long out Everest says as the challenge escalates the need for teamwork elevates you see this law is about gathering and growing a team to accomplish something big that's what this law is all about it's about gathering and growing a team in other words the question I have for you is who are you bringing around you I guess there are really two questions who are you bringing around you and what are you doing to develop them because it's more than just gathering people around you that's good but it's not enough you also want to grow them the law of Mount Everest basically says this if you're just going to climb a hill you don't need a team I mean I guess you just need your shorts and gym shoes in that right huh get your shorts and sneakers and spend an hour and climb the hill you really don't need a team to climb a hill but the law Mount Everest says if you're going to climb Mount Everest if you're going to take something bigger than life bigger than you can ever imagine bigger than anything you've ever accomplished basically the law Mount Everest says the bigger the project the bigger the challenge the better team you have to have around you so there are three Mount Everest questions that you just need to ask yourself if you're going to build a Mount Everest team here are the questions you want to ask yourself number one what is my dream it's a great question what's my dream what am I trying to accomplish that's the first thing because I can tell you this the size of your dream determines the size of your team so if you have the dream of a hill the biggest thing you want to do is climb a little hill then you can kind of just get a little kind of little hill team if you want to climb Mount Everest the size of your dream must determine the size of your team which brings me to the second not Everest question who's on my team that's a very important question because I run to people all the time to say I have a great dream and they talk about their dream and I'm glad they're talking about the dream and get very excited about it but as they're talking about their dream I want to slow them down I want to say timeout timeout hold it just a second here's the question I've got for you not what your dream is who's on your team because I want to tell you something a big dream and a bad team it's a nightmare I guarantee the third question you want to ask yourself is what should my dream team look like in other words if I had this Mount Everest dream okay then what should my dream team look like and let me say this only when the team and the dream match do you fulfill it I also want to say one other thing in the beginning the dream is always better and bigger than the team in the beginning it just is you got this big dream and you got to start assembling people they aren't always the right people you don't have all the right people on the bus you got to change them around a little bit you know that don't you okay so in the beginning your dream is bigger than your team but the longer you stay the more the team should grow up to equal and be able to meet the challenge of that Mount Everest dream the best equipping illustration I can give you is one of my very favorite I'll read it to you it's the story of a bricklayer who tried to move 500 pounds of bricks from the top of a four-story building to the bottom below and the problem was he tried to do it all by himself without the help of anyone else and these are the words right here are the words that were taken off of his insurance claim form here's what he said it would have taken too long to carry bricks down by hand so I decided to put them in a barrel and lower them by a pulley which I had fastened to the top of the building so after tying the rope securely at ground level I then went up to the top of the building I fastened rope around the barrel loaded it with bricks swung it out over the sidewalk for the descent then I went down to the sidewalk and I untied the rope holding it securely to guide the barrel down slowly but since I only weigh a hundred and forty pen the 500 pound load jerked me from the ground so fast that didn't have time to think of letting go of the rope as I pass between the second and third floors I met the barrel coming down its accounts for the bruises and the lacerations of my upper body I held tightly to the rope until I reached the top where my hand became jammed in the pulley this accounts for unbroken thumb the same time however the barrel hit the sidewalk with a bang and the bottom fell out with the weight of the bricks gun barrel weighed only about 40 pounds that's my 140 pound body began a swift descent and I met the empty barrel coming up this accounts for my broken ankle boat only slightly I continued to descent and I landed on the pile of bricks this accounts for my sprained back and broken collarbone I love this next phrase I'd like to debate it at this point he said I lost my presence of mind completely I lost my presence of eye completely and I let go of the rope and the empty barrel came crashing down on him this accounts for my head injuries and asked for the last question on your insurance claim form what would you do if the same situation rose again please be advised I'm finished trying to do the job all by myself successful people equip people because they know they shouldn't and can't do the job all by themselves just remember the barrel the next time you're tempted you