At first, Will Smith just ressembles an easy going and fun loving family man.  But his meteoric success is testament to a intrinsic doggedness which has shot him to great achievement in many fields.  If you look a bit deeper, past his easy smile and infectious laugh, there lie some valuable insights into achieving your vision for the future.

But Will Smith does not spout a bunch of pre-canned psycho-babble, the likes of which you’ll hear ad nauseum on talk shows and on book shelves.  His variety of success guideline stems from down to earth experience based lessons.  Ageless wisdom from his grandmother, along with the wisom gained on his path to success, produces a no-nonsense path to success.

Three Will Smith Principles of Success

Decide

Reject the common convention of what is realistic.  Determine who you want to be, what you want to do and how you can make it happen.  In being able to accept that version of reality as possible, it will be.  Dax Moy, a particularly effective success writer, explains this as “suspending reality” in his e-book, The Magic Hundred success program.

Will Smith once said, “You are who you choose to be.”  And that’s the magic of his approach.  If you choose mediocrity, the results will be mediocre.  By choosing greatness, you will achieve excellence.  Your actions start with your thoughts and your beliefs.

Turn Setbacks Into Opportunities

An important lesson Will Smith learned from his grandmother is that in life you need to make lemonade when you have lemons dumped on you.  Latch onto perceived setbacks as opportunities to make something better.  Smith refers to this as being an alchemist and turning lead into gold.  Take situations that may seem negative at first and seek out the opportunities for growth that lie hidden within them.

But if you want to be open to those opportunities, you have to accept for your life.  You need to own up to that external factors are not to blame for all your setbacks.  By taking on the responsibilty for your destiny, you are opening the door do self-examination.  This brings about awareness and the wherewithal to recognize and act on opportunity.

Good Old Fashioned Hard Work

This is the real treasure of Smith’s approach to success.  Despite our endless desire for immediate results, the time tested secret to assured success is to get your hands dirty through hard work.  This third principle may seem to conflict with our first point.  However, it is actually the logical outgrowth of it.  From the moment you choose who you want to be, you must start taking constant steps towards that reality. 

There is no magical magnetism which will realign the universe to your will.  But you can slowly bend reality to your vision by constantly taking incremental steps in the direction of your goals.  Just like the constant flow of a meandering river can, over time, alter an entire landscape.  Your constant action steps will alter the course of your life and affect every part of your existence.

“If you stay ready, you ain’t gotta get ready.”

This is the perfect Will Smith quatation to close things off with.  Make A Choice, Make Lemonade and Work Hard; if you do, you’ll be ready when it counts.  That tends to be the biggest differentiating factor between people who attain their goals and those who don’t.  Successful people watch for opportunities, recognize them, and have the will to answer the call when opportunity knocks.

There’s nothing fancy here.  These tips are nothing but reminders.  That’s what is so great about Will Smith’s approach to success.  There’s no fancy or trendy tricks.  It’s about time-tested old fashioned values.  Instant success is a long-term affair that demands hard work and focus.  Choosing to act daily is the start of that process.  And every small action, each tiny detail accumulates into something infinitely bigger than anything we could have hoped for.

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