About 10 years ago, a friend of mine made a life-altering decision. She had been presented with an opportunity to spend one year as an exchange student in Europe, in several different countries. Now, she didn't exactly come from a family of world travelers, nor were her parents wealthy enough to send her overseas for an extended amount of time. Come to think of it, no one in her poor neighborhood had even dreamed of doing such a thing - they were to busy struggling with their day-to-day existence.



The temptation to not consider it any further was certainly very strong. She had no idea what she might be getting into; She didn't know any foreign languages. Going overseas for a year meant not working, spending lots of her hard-earned savings (and in her neighborhood, that meant a lot!) and leaving behind family and friends, something that she had never done before. More importantly, when she would come back, she'd come back broke.

She went back and forth for quite a while. In then end, she said, "what the heck - the worst that can happen is that I hate it and come home early. Who knows when I'll have this kind of time again?" Her curiosity was getting the best of her. She called her school counselor. "Sign me up", she said.

Needless to say, her family thought she was crazy and didn't believe she was actually going until she scraped together her meager savings and left for the airport two months later.

Lessons Learned

Initially, the trip across the pond was a total disaster. To begin with, the airline bumped her entire group - 50 people - leaving her to find other airlines to get to Europe. With her luck, she ended up on the later flight. Then, she ended up spending 10 hours in the airport before she finally left. She was thinking that she probably should have listened to all the people that told her she was crazy to go. She arrived, exhausted and with a mean case of jetlag in Europe the next day; she got to her apartment and passed out.

A funny thing happened the next day. After getting out and exploring a bit, she discovered that she actually liked Europe. It was so easy to travel and get around. She found her way to the nearest travel agency and bought a train pass.

The next week, she traveled to a few countries - all on her own, because several students were too afraid to travel outside the "base" country. This isn't to say that she wasn't apprehensive, because she was; however, she made a conscious decision to overcome her fear because she wanted to find out what else was out there. She wanted to know what was beyond the sheltered world that she had once known. She discovered that train travel across Europe was quite easy and safe, if one just used common sense. After the first week, she traveled, alone, to a different country every week. She felt a newfound sense of independence, freedom, accomplishment and success that she had never felt before, and it felt great!

Her year in Europe was a real eye opener for her. It exposed her to things that she would never have experienced otherwise. She would never have experienced different cultures, systems, met as many new people or learned that she had a very adventurous spirit and thirst for knowledge. And she would have never met her future husband. They ended up running his restaurant together, quite successfully, in Berlin for another year, before they both returned to the States. She was not as broke as she had imagined she would be!

What's the lesson from all this? Don't let fear hold you back - nothing great is ever accomplished without some risk. Fear is what keeps 99% of people from becoming successful in life. Don't let that happen to you - know what you want and go for it!

What You Need To Know

Attaining success in life is completely up to you. Sure, there are some factors that you just can't control. The answer? Don't worry about them - worry about factors that you can control - you and your actions and your thinking.

Points To Remember:

?Be open to all possbilities. Don't discount an idea just because it seems new to you.

?Don't let fear of failure dominate you, although it can be very powerful. Fear is what stops 99% of people from being successful.

?Recognize that sometimes you have to take a risk - successfully negotiating risk-taking is what makes one successful in the long run.

?Always keep an eye out for new opportunities.

Success in life is about finding inner peace, satisfaction and emotional stability. You can't achieve that until you change your thinking, start thinking out of the box and take some risk. This applies to business as well as to your personal life.

You've got to be able to step out of your "comfort zone".

Some Of The Pillars Of Success:

?Plan your work, and work your plan!

?Strive for excellence. Set your own goals - don't try to reach the goals of others

?Make a commitment and stick to it!

?Accept that disappointments are a fact of life. Instead of allowing them to hold you back, overcome them and you will become stronger.

?Turn every experience, whether good or bad, into a learning experience.

?Live each day as if it were your last; have no regrets.

Some Final Words?..

There are more talkers than doers in our society. Which one are you? Do you wait for things to happen, or do you make them happen? If you think that things will happen for you if you just think about it and fail to take action, I have bad news for you. They won't. The only thing worse than procrastinating for a day is procrastinating for a day and a minute.

It's time to stop thinking about making a change to ensure your future success and time to do something about it. Starting a home based business if the first step that you need to be willing to take - for your financial independence, your financial security and that of your family.