"The 6 Success Strategies for Winning at Life, Love & Business" by Wolf J. Rinke, PhD

Part one of a two-part interview with Wolf J. Rinke, PhD, author of The 6 Success Strategies for Winning at Life, Love & Business

As an author, management consultant, associate professor and professional speaker, Dr. Wolf Rinke understands what it takes to be successful. At age 14 he began working full time onboard a ship, and it was there he first developed the principles that guide him along his life’s journey. In this first part of our interview, Dr. Rinke discusses the scientifically validated principles that can help anyone develop an attitude for success.

What’s your definition of success?
I like the definition I borrowed from Earl Nightingale: “Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal.” And the reason I like that definition is because it has two important components. The first one is that the goal must be progressive. In other words, once you get there something else needs to take the place of the original goal, because that’s basically what pulls us along this journey of life. The second component is that it needs to be a worthy goal.

My own definition of success is “anything that accomplishes what you want, as long as it enriches someone else.” That’s success in my book. It took me about 26 years to figure out there is a universal law – and I don’t use that term lightly – and universal law says that if you want something, you first have to give it. It must enrich someone else.

What are some of the action steps to attain success?
What I’ve outlined in “The 6 Success Strategies” are six specific things that we need to work on if we want to achieve success in all aspects of our lives. I call it the double-PEP formula. What that acronym stands for is:

Positive self-esteem
This really has to do with taking care of Number One. If you don’t feel good about yourself, certainly you’re not going to be able to give that away. Everything you do in life has to start with yourself. If you’re not becoming the best you can be, then certainly you can’t help other people become the best they can be.

Purpose
What are you here to do on this short journey? What’s your purpose? Why are you here? I believe that all of us have a purpose; there’s something we are meant to do while we’re on his short journey. That’s what purpose is all about – finding out what that something is.

Energy
Energy has to do with getting “high” without getting stoned. There’s an overwhelming body of evidence that shows we can turn ourselves on. We don’t need drugs to do it. The drugs are already resident in our bodies. Energy has to do with figuring out how to turn yourself on without having to resort to anything external.

Education
This has to do with becoming a voracious lifelong learner. As a management consultant I am consistently overwhelmed with the fact that the only way you get personal lifetime job security in today’s wide global economy is to invest in the most important resource you own – yourself. This is about you. What are you doing to be the best you can be?

Positive attitude
Find the good in the bad. Prof. Marty Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania led a psychology movement that exemplifies this concept of finding the good in the bad. He calls it “developing a positive explanatory style,” which simply means that bad stuff happens to all of us. But it’s not what happens to you; it’s what you do with it that really counts. That’s a real important take-away. Because once you figure that out, you no longer play the blame game, and when you no longer play the blame game, the quality of your life improves.

Perseverance
Unfortunately, although we all want it on a silver platter, at the counter of success you always have to pay full price and you always have to pay in advance. People are fond of pointing fingers at those who somehow find a shortcut to success. But that’s so rare – it’s analagous to winning the lottery – so you don’t want to bet your life on that. You have to hang in there and you have to pay the price. If it’s worth going for, then you must pay for it. And I mean pay in effort, initiative, and time -- all those rare things we don’t want to give up. If you do that consistently and you’re willing to pursue your purpose, sooner or later you’ll get what some people call lucky. I like this saying: “The harder I work the luckier I get.”

Do you feel dreams and goals are important?
I think dreams are critical. As a professional speaker I take people through a process that helps them dream a big dream. Somewhere on our journey we’re often taught not to dream. People are told to get real or to get their heads out of the clouds. I think it’s important to dream a big dream but there has to be more than just dreaming.

Once you figure out what your dream is, you have to step it down. You want to take the dream and step down into very specific goals and objectives -- what I call baby steps, the little things you know you can do. The reality is that people dream the big dream but then think it’s way too hard, so what you want to do is get it down to where it isn’t simply “not hard,” but where it’s really easy. Once you accomplish a bunch of small objectives, you get your goal accomplished. And once you accomplish a bunch of goals, you get your dream accomplished.

One more little trick: You have to fool yourself. Paying the price is a pain. Who wants to do that? In order to pay the price and do it willingly, you have to fool yourself. You have to extend a reward that’s so big, you’re willing to pay the price of doing what it takes right now to get to where you want to go. Establish external carrots that motivate you to do the things you don’t really feel like doing.

What are the four steps for turning dreams into reality?
This ties in with what I’ve previously mentioned:

1. Dream the big dream and get very clear on what that dream is.
2. Step the dream down into specific goals.
3. Step the goals into specific objectives.
4. Write it all down.

Read part two of this interview with Wolf J. Rinke, PhD, in the next post.