After visiting the beach with my colleague and watching the children collect crabs in a bucket, I continued my discussion with my financial adviser about Napoleon Hill and the importance of avoiding negative influences in life. We talked about how people tend to be just like crabs, pulling each other back down into the bucket, instead of helping them to escape the many traps in life. Together, we talked about the manner in which we need to put ourselves in the right attitude for success and how this needs to be at the top of our list.



Staying positive and surrounding yourself with positive people who share your attitude will help you to succeed. It is so important not to allow negative thoughts to slip into our minds because a good attitude allows you to turn any bad situation into a learning experience. Many people have heard the saying, The glass is either half-full or half-empty. In business and life, we need to adopt the attitude that our cup is always half-full. This is how we learn to feel better, have more energy, and have a much greater opportunity for success.

One of the biggest problems that people tend to fall into is to constantly look back into the past with regrets. It is so important not to look back but to look into the present moment and the future. Everyone has failures or mistakes from their past. Success comes from how we choose to learn from that past. If we choose to value those difficult lessons and avoid the negative attitude which comes from dwelling on the mistakes, we can move forward and make things better for ourselves. This makes us more educated in our decisions from that point on.

Another important way to avoid negative influences and the crab mentality is to learn to stop complaining. We might think there is no correlation between complaining and success but there really is. When we spend all our time complaining about the challenges we are facing, we waste our time and energy being negative and actually miss the chance to move forward. Instead of thinking of challenges as problems, we have to think of them as greater opportunities. In the same way, we have to avoid others who possess negative attitudes like jealousy or pride and who constantly claim to know everything. If we are serious about reaching our goals in life and being successful, we need to rid ourselves of these people and their negative influences.

As we begin to make progress and reach higher toward the freedom from that proverbial crab bucket, we also need to learn to give ourselves a break. Being determined is one thing but we shouldn't be so hard on ourselves that we become critical of every move we make. An attitude of fun tends to further our cause in most cases and leaves us open to more positive influences. It is ok to give ourselves some room to make mistakes and be flexible. That doesn't mean ignoring our goals but it does mean that we can simply learn from our mistakes and then get back to business again. Yet another negative influence that tends to pull us crabs back down into the bucket is the problem we have with getting past our fear of failure. Being afraid of failure is normal for everyone on the planet but the manner in which we can get past that fear is the determining factor between failing and succeeding. We can do that by setting realistic goals for ourselves and then examining those goals every once in a while. This creates the opportunity to do any necessary realignment and to remain on a good path.

If we keep our eyes open and watch for those clever crabs who intend to inflict their scams on us, we can also save ourselves a great deal of time and energy. Whether you are just starting out or expanding an existing business, you are going to learn that there are thousands of people waiting to defraud you out of your hard earned money. It is best to conduct research and slow down before you jump into an opportunity that looks too perfect. If it looks too perfect, it very likely is. If someone pressures you to jump into a business arrangement to fast, just tell them you aren't interested right now. This is one of the best ways to avoid the negative influences that Napoleon Hill has discussed.

Moving along the pathway to success, it is also important to avoid the neglect of our responsibilities. The little things can often build up to a whole lot of big things and eventually into a big mess if they are not taken care of in a timely manner. Take time to get your debts paid and especially watch those credit card debts that will cost you a fortune in interest over the long term. Keep your records and credit clean so as to avoid one of the biggest negative influences that a crab will ever encounter in that proverbial bucket. With these tips in mind, you'll be reaching to the lip of that bucket in no time and hurling yourself over the edge into the ocean of financial success!