Invest in Your Successful Future!

            If that initial investment is delayed by any amount of time, then the return is delayed. Richardson used his extensive background in retirement planning to relate it to the problem of how to succeed, what to do and what not to do. He used personal stories to illustrate just exactly how the process works.

            Falling off a 12-foot ladder, Richardson said, gave him a hard look at his "fatality threshold", the point where 50% of those experiencing what he did would end up dying. Found on the ground by an FBI agent of a neighbor, and put back to health, it was a time when he had to take stock of his life. All of us have or should have these times, he said.

            "I had a plan go off in my life," Jim said, "as I could have died or been paralyzed. Is success really a dice roll, or is there a pattern? If life is an investment, would I make it in myself?"

            Investment planning in your future, and he showed how a typical investment works, only works using three lessons: Don't delay (it hurts the back end), it's worth doing poorly (everything new starts poorly), and in compounding you won't see results early on. Never feel it is too late to start towards success, in life or in relationships. Jim quoted Les Brown, who said it's people who aim too low and hit their goal that causes complacency and lives without purpose.

            Failure compounds, just like success. Prepare for what's ahead and invest in the future. Finding out and experiencing different things will alleviate ignorance.

            "If you do what's easy, your life will be hard," Richardson said, "but, if you do what's hard (up front), your life will be easy. Influence the future by not letting your past define you."

            He challenged us to ask really difficult questions, told us we'd get to our goals if we're willing to work, exhorted us to be bigger than we could be, and lastly to become extraordinary and invest in the present!

            Jim Richardson believes in magic over mediocrity, and finished his time with us reading Dr. Seuss' "Oh! The Places You Will Go!"