30 Inspiring Bishop T.D Jakes Quotes on the Instinct to Succeed

TD Jakes is a Pastor, Author, Entrepreneur. In his book Instincts, he shares powerful success secrets. Here are 30 inspiring quotes culled from his book “Instincts”:

1. Most highly successful people didn’t develop in an environment of success, they evolved into it.
2. God wants us to see beyond the literal, above the bottom line, and beneath the surface of appearances. We all have access to the same information and opportunities as successful people. But some of us never go beyond what is required to add to the task what is inspired.
3. In this highly competitive world we live in today, meeting the demand will never produce exceptional results. Successful people exceeded what was commanded of them and veered into the creative to which there was no previous point of reference.
4. If you are not participating in the solution, you are by default adding to the problem
5. Often the complexity of our lives spawns the creativity in our lives!
6. Instincts and imagination allow us to see opportunities where others see only limitations – instead of focusing on what we don’t have, we concentrate on what we do have – and what can be created from those ingredients.
7. Our instincts teach us how to take less and do more.
8. It is not enough to know what people did if you can’t learn why they did it like they did it.
9. Intellect can explain things, but instincts can help you make discoveries
10. You must surround yourself with talented, well-informed people in order to prepare for the future, you must include those individuals gifted with instincts.
11. Your professors and bosses can invest countless hours exposing you to critical information and inspire you with historical empirical data that will be invaluable as you trek through life. But the gift they cannot give you is the instincts to know when to do what only you can do and where to do it.
12. If necessity is indeed the mother of invention, then desperation is the father.
13. When expectations don’t run according to plan, you must be willing to change course, adapt your vision, and recalculate what’s needed to survive.
14. Every obstacle contains an opportunity. It may not be the door way to success you were looking for – it may be a second-story window left open just a crack.
15. Hardship can humble you, but it cannot break you unless you let it.
16. There is no greater way to hone your instincts than to overcome adversity. Successful leaders know that instincts transform adversity into opportunity.
17. You cannot take everyone with you just because they were with you were you where before.
18. So often we look to others for inspiration, approval or affirmation of what we should do and how we should do it. But you will never achieve fulfilment of your vision this way. My friend, you are the singularly most effective source for outwardly manifesting all the visions, inventions, books, or businesses that are naturally part of your gifting.
19. Many can imitate what you do, but none can duplicate what you do if you produce outwardly what you possess inwardly. If you follow your instincts inside out, you emerge in a class all by yourself.
20. When you follow your instincts and transform your vision into reality, you will discover that accidents, mistakes, and conflicts become creative material. Rarely do you have everything you think you need in order to succeed.
21. Don’t give up or be deterred from your destiny just because it doesn’t seem to fit a formula.
22. It is okay to be fearful, but don’t let the fear keep you from flying.
23. He who wins the race cannot run with the pack.
24. Succumbing to living in the land of the average seems a massive waste of will and wit.
25. It is not how many times you have failed; its what you’ve learned each time you get back on your feet.
26. We need to fail boldly if we are to succeed extravagantly
27. We can overcome our fears if we remember that life does not demand more than it gives.
28. How you think about your opportunities determines how you will act on them
29. If you don’t watch those who claim to have your back, you will eventually find yourself lying on it.
30. The world is our University and everyone you encounter is your teacher. When you wake up each day, make sure you go to school.

14 Inspiring Arnold Schwarzenegger Quotes on Achievement

Photo Credit: flickr.com

Arnold Schwarzenegger first gained fame as a body builder, using that as a launching point to become a huge Hollywood star and, later the Governor of California, USA. Here are 14 quotes from Arnold, on how to achieve just anything in life:

1. Normal people can be happy with a regular life, but there is more to life than just plodding through an average existence.
2. Desire something and don’t just care what you have to go through to get it.
3. Through discipline, and determination one can change anything and everything about him – his habits, his outlook on life
4. Always listen to your inner voice, your instincts
5. You have to fight, you have to have courage for what you really want
6. Always have one possibility in mind and that is to go to the top, to be the best. Everything else should just be a means to that end.
7. Concentrate on your goals. Do not allow other thoughts to enter your mind. If you allow them to, other things could take your concentration away from your ultimate aim.
8. Mentally it is possible to break records, once you understand that, you can do anything.
9. Positive thinking is contagious. Being surrounded by winners helps you develop into a winner.
10. Almost anything difficult, any challenge takes time, patience, and hard work.
11. Life should be, being continuously hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.
12. The mind is incredible. Once you’ve gained mastery over it, channelling its powers positively, for your purpose you can do anything.
13. The secret of success is to make your mind work for you – not against you. This means constantly being positive, constantly setting up challenges you can meet – either today, next week, or next month etc.
14. The words “I Can’t” should be permanently stricken from your vocabulary, especially the vocabulary of your thoughts. You must see yourself always growing and improving.

 

The Test of Faith

 

He knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold. (Job 23:10)

“The strongest trees are found not in the thick shelter of the forest but out in the open, where winds from every direction bear down upon them. The fierce winds bend and twist them until they become giant in stature. These are the trees that tool makers seek for handles for their tools, because of the wood’s great strength.” It is the same with anyone who desires to live a great life. The path to greatness isn’t one where the sun always shines, and things are always so easy. Instead the path is often steep, rocky, and narrow, where the storms, challenges, obstacles, frustrations of life will try to knock you off your feet. Where the betrayals of loved ones, will cut you, and enemies will try to destroy you.

Living your greatest life requires great faith. And great faith can only come when you are tested. When you are faced with suffering, tears, trials, conflicts, hardships, dangers, beatings, persecutions, misunderstanding, trouble, etc, yet you know that “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Yes, in all these (even during storms, when the winds are the most intense) we are more than conquerors. “You may be tempted to run from the ordeal of a fierce storm of testing, but head straight for it! God is there to meet you in the centre of each trial And He will whisper to you His secrets, which will bring you out with a radiant face and such an invincible faith that all the demons of hell will never be able to shake it.”

Blessings in Burdens

I was gifted with this piece, and I thought it is worth sharing here;

There is a fable about the way birds first got their wings. The story goes that initially they were made without them. Then God made the wings, set them down before the wingless birds, and said to them, “Take up these burdens and carry them.”

The birds had sweet voices for singing, and lovely feathers that glistened in the sunshine, but they could not soar in the air. When asked to pick up the burdens that lay at their feet, they hesitated at first. Yet soon they obeyed, picked up the wings with their beaks, and set them on their shoulders to carry them.

For a short time the load seemed heavy and difficult to bear, but soon, as they continued to carry the burden and to fold the wings over their hearts, the wings grew attached to their little bodies. They quickly discovered how to use them and were lifted by the wings high into the air. The weights had become wings.

This is a parable for us. We are the wingless birds, and our duties and tasks are the wings God uses to lift us up and carry us heavenward. We look at our burdens and heavy loads, and try to run from them, but if we will carry them and tie them to our hearts, they will become wings. And on them we can then rise and soar toward God.

Love by Maya Angelou

Today the world is saddened by the death of  a truly great individual. A woman who has touched the lives of millions of people all over the world, with her words, and her person.  A woman  who lived her life with gratitude and grace and gave so many gifts to this world. Though she may be dead, her words and works live on as she herself once said, ” Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.” – Yes not even death can dim your light Maya Angelou! I celebrate you. RIP!

May these quotes on love by Maya Angelou inspire you to live your greatest life;

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Drop them at My Feet!

Do you find yourself surrounded with needs, and nearly overwhelmed with difficulties, trials, and emergencies? Friends each of these are vessels God wants to fill. A wise man once said, when God wants to promote a man he sends him a storm. If you correctly understand their meaning, you will see them as opportunities for receiving new blessings and deliverance you can receive in no other way. The Lord is saying to you, “Drop them at my feet.” Firmly hold the vessels before Him, in faith and in prayer. Remain still before Him, and stop your own restless working until He begins to work. Do nothing that He Himself has not commanded you to do. Allow God time to work and He surely will. Then the very trials that threatened to overcome you with discouragement and disaster will become God’s opportunity to reveal His grace and glory in your life, in ways you have never known before.

A Message from Paulo Coelho

Those with eyes to see

Avoid those who say: ‘That’s it, I’ll go no further.’

Because what they have failed to grasp is that neither life nor death has an end; they are merely stages of eternity.

Stay close to those who say: ‘Everything’s fine as it is, but we still need to move on.’
Because they understand the need to keep going beyond the known horizon.

Avoid those who meet up to discuss, seriously and pretentiously, any decisions that the community needs to take.
They understand about politics, they impress others and try to show how wise they are.
What they don’t understand is that it is impossible to control so much as the fall of a single hair on your head.
Discipline is important, but it needs to leave doors and windows open to intuition and the unexpected.

Stay close to those who sing, tell stories, enjoy life and whose eyes sparkle with happiness.
Because happiness is contagious and will always manage to find a solution whereas logic can find only an explanation for the mistake made.

The Power to Choose

One day when my dog was still a young puppy, I had come into the house to catch it barking at and attacking its own image in a mirror, taking it for another dog. It charged and got so agitated until I had to carry it away from the mirror to prevent it from causing some damage in the house. When I discussed the incident with my vet sometime later, she explained to me that animals are territorial in nature, and this makes them always perceive other animals or see persons outside their homes as intruders, who’ve come to take over their territory. And so in other to prevent such occurrence, and prove their dominance, they often attack, in defence.

So it is with many of us today. We go through life fighting it. We expect a battle at every turn, and that is how it turns out. We expect to have enemies, and we certainly do. We expect to have one difficulty or the other, and that is exactly the way it happens. When the rains or winter come, we expect to fall sick, or feel miserable, and so we do. And that is just the way it is, and the way it’s going to be for most of us because we fail to recognise and use the power in us. – “The power to choose”. We can choose to have excellent relationships, we can choose to make everyday a great day in our lives, we can choose to live healthy lives and not be afraid of the cold, just the same way we choose what colour of clothes to wear, what brand of car to buy, what part of town to live, what TV channel  to watch, who to date or marry.

You see our whole lives are run by our choices. At this moment, whether your life is going forward or backward is your choice. Yet too often when we make bad choices, we blame God, as if it were His fault. When, most times we never even consult God to guide us on the choices we make. Even when He tries to warn us through our instincts – that inner voice that calmly tells us what we are about to do isn’t right, we ignore Him. God never imposes His will on us. He guides us and lets us choose. He only comes in when invited. Other times, we blame people – our parents, siblings, friends, partners, etc when things go wrong. Especially here in Africa we hardly accept faults and responsibility, even when it is clear that it’s our fault. When things go wrong people often ask “Who” instead of “what” or “why” our fingers are always pointing to the externals never at us.

You are Far Richer than You Realize!

A post from a friend of mine (Nikki Bless) shared on facebook with these words “You are far richer than you realize”, got me thinking of the many times, I have judged myself and my worth based on my bank statements, my plenty unmet needs and demands. I always think of my struggles, my bills, and say I am not rich enough to afford this or that. I limit myself, because I had believed and valued myself by the world’s standards.

I forget about the people in the bible who acted on God’s word, and discovered that they were richer than they realized; the widow of Zarephat, how she gave her last meal to Elijah and never lacked what to eat with her son for many seasons; The widow with only a jar of oil, and with many debts to pay; the little boy who gave up his lunch of five loaves of bread and two fishes, and went home with twelve baskets more. Folks, do you often find yourselves in my spot, where you judge your giving to others, by what you have?  Do often value your life by what your bank statements say?’ Do you think you aren’t worth much, because of your many