Fred Stuvek Jr - It Starts With You: Turn Your Goals Into Success

IT STARTS
WITH YOU

Turn Your Goals Into Success

FRED STUVEK JR.

Copyrighted Material

It Starts with You

Copyright 2018 by Fred Stuvek Jr. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwisewithout prior written permission from the publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

For information about this title or to order other books and/or electronic media, contact the publisher:

Triumvirate Press

617 W Main Street

Knoxville, Tennessee 37902

itstartswithyou.net

ISBNs: 978-1-7323060-0-4 (softcover)

978-1-7323060-2-8 (hardcover)

978-1-7323060-1-1 (ePub)

978-1-7323060-3-5 (Kindle)

Printed in the United States of America

Cover and Interior design: 1106 Design

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Preface

The sum total of your experience, your interactions with others, and the challenges and opportunities you face serve to mold and ultimately transform you into the individual you are today. This transformation is a continual work in progress, as the learning process is an ongoing endeavor.

Learning comes about in many ways. The process is easy, and it is difficult. It is painful and pleasing. It is humbling, and it is rewarding. It is fraught with uncertainty as one anguishes about future outcomes. Oftentimes, you will feel you have no control over what is going on, which further adds to your anxiety and stress level. You will struggle to find the right path, make the right decision, and achieve the desired outcome. And as you progress through this journey, each experience will be an important piece or part of the learning process that will ultimately give you more experience, more confidence, and result in a higher success rate.

I have been fortunate to have been exposed to a myriad of experiences that have enabled me to learn, grow, and achieve success. My experience covers a fairly broad range, one which I have been told is unique, although it never occurred to me until someone mentioned it. I have a sports background, having competed at the highest levels on an intercollegiate level. I have a military background by virtue of my education and training at the United States Naval Academy and subsequent military service. I have a business background in both the private and public sector, and I started up and sold my own company. Over the course of my career, there were various principles and lessons learned, and best practices that served me well. These principles apply to whatever sector you are in and whatever you do. They are proven; they work, and they get results.

The purpose of this book is to instill within each of you those principles, which, when pieced together, will optimize your chances for success. If you adhere to what I recommend, it will be a valuable learning experience for you with lifelong benefits. It will not be a matter of success or no success, but one of degree of success, which ultimately is up to you.

You will notice throughout the book principles and recommendations that reference both your personal and professional life. The reason for this is that most of you reading this have both a professional life and a personal life. Behavior and success or failure in one area spills over into the other, which is why I use the term balance several times in this book.

The book is written in such a way that each chapter builds on the previous one in a comprehensive yet specific manner. Explanations are given as to why each principle is important, with instructions on how to improve your skill set in each area, as skills are learned and developed. Adhering to this regimen gives you the opportunity to unlock your potential by changing your mind-set and putting you in an action mode to attain your goals and achieve success, fulfillment, and happiness.

These basic principles are important and never change. They are timeless in this regard and are recession-proof. Whether in ancient Greece, Rome, London, Kyoto, Peking, or colonial Boston, these same principles were seen as the basic underpinnings of success. If your basic fundamentals are sound, you can build on these and better understand and deal with the complexities. If your basics are strong, you are strong. This foundation will serve as a bulwark when dealing with the opportunities, challenges, and adversity you will face.

Throughout the book, the terms belief and mind-set are continually used. Your achievement in life will be determined largely by the belief and confidence you have in yourself and what you do. You will never reach your true potential without this steadfast belief and confidence. A strong person who believes in himself or herself cannot be defeated, as they are confident. They have a warrior-like mind-set, they have the will to prevail, and they have trained themselves to be the best.

Life is about decisions. You are not a victim of circumstances. The life you are living is the life you have created, which is based on the decisions you have made and the habits you have formed.

You do not and should not wait for success to happen. If you do, it will be a very long wait. This is something that is within your control, but it is up to you. This book will provide you with the instructions and motivation to achieve it, as It Starts With You.

P A R T O N E

Find Something You Believe
In, and Get Good at It

C H A P T E R O N E

Believe

The single most important quality for achieving any degree of success and happiness is belief. This word, simple in nature, is one of the most powerful words in our vocabulary. It is the central force behind success and great accomplishments. It is the key trait for every accomplished person. If you do not believe in yourself, how do you expect someone else to believe in you? If you do not believe in yourself, you will never realize your full potential.

There is something you can do to unleash the ultimate potential that resides within each and every one of us. It is a process that takes time. It requires a plan along with the commitment and discipline to follow-through. The sooner you commit, the quicker you will realize your full potential. It is eminently doable. It starts with you.

There are two essential parts to believing. The first is belief in oneself. The second is belief in what you are doing. You can have the first without the second, or vice versa, but if one of these is missing you have a mismatch. The combination of these two essential parts, however, is formidable and will enable you to realize your ultimate potential. This is your goal.

We all start with dreams and goals. We imagine being successful, happy, and fulfilled. Sometimes, perhaps many times, things dont go the way we thought they would. You have setbacks, which you view as failures. As these build up, you start to doubt yourself. You find yourself stuck in a rut and feel trapped. You focus too much on what went wrong, crediting setbacks to factors beyond your control or to bad luck. You feel ineffective, sometimes giving up and retreating to whatever safe haven may exist. You continue in a mode of behavior that reinforces this downward trend. You realize life can be tough and is not fair, and become disillusioned. You lose confidence in yourself and your abilities; you sink to the point where you cease believing in yourself. You have feelings of helplessness and despair; your health may even be affected. And unless you change, nothing will change, as you continue on the treadmill of failure. You need to break the cycle, otherwise every day will be the same, like it was for Bill Murrays character in