Last Friday night (11/2/07), a something extraordinary happened, briefly mentioned in a post the following day:       

………..I suddenly felt a strange compulsion to walk over to the bookcase…retrieve two green booklets on the very bottom shelf….turned out to be…personal diaries….not read since 1995….the year I made enormous amounts of money on Wall Street, was in better physical shape in my mid-thirties….not to mention countless of exciting bedroom escapades….But something else was happening….I was shocked to see a darker, more sinister side of me appear…. there were names of people who I have no recollection of ever meeting but they were supposedly my dearest, closest friends…….

Oh my sweet Mama! 

Did that sound like something out of a Hollywood movie?  Obviously I’m not going to lay out everything for the world to see but I’d like to share lessons gleaned from the diaries.   Also on this list are some of the undesirable demons I struggled with at the time.  

All of them made me who I am today.

4 Success Habits Capitulating Me to a Six-Figure Career on Wall Street

Intense focus- Each night before leaving the office at Merrill Lynch, I created a plan for the next day and then worked it the moment I walked in the following morning.  The plan included names of clients I would call, sales goal for the day, appointments with prospective clients and other things to keep me on track.  

Work ethic - Came in to work early (7 am) and left late (8 pm).  I loved the feeling of beating everyone to the punch in the office.  I guess it gave me a sense of competitiveness or maybe it was just the desire to kick start the day.   Whatever it was, it made me feel GREAT!  (Merrill Lynch Bull Photo Credit:  Travis S.)

Passion - I repeatedly wrote in my diary how much I loved the work I was doing.  The fierce fire in the pit of my belly gave me a reason to bounce out of bed and eagerly look forward to the day’s events.  

Visualization - Pictures of hotels in faraway places that I’d be staying at for sales-related sales contests were cut and hung where I could see them daily.  I also visualized how much monthly income I desired.  It was interesting, in retrospect, to see on some of those pages figures ranging from $20,000 to $30,000 a month! 

How I Got Through Tough Spots

• Prayed to a Higher Power - This was the year where God was officially recognized as my unseen partner in life.  This was a spiritual, not religious decision.  While I have always been conscious of His invisible presence, it wasn’t until 1995 when I truly communed with him on a daily basis, using prayer to communicate my innermost desires, thoughts, fears, emotions, etc.  
• Daily Gratitude- This went hand-in-hand with my new-found relationship with a higher power.  I was constantly seeking the good in everything that happened to me (even the challenging ones) and then finding reasons to be grateful for them.  It got to the point where I was doing this unconsciously, enabling me to shift from limited to unlimited possibility thinking.  
• Faith in Myself- Even though 1995 was my best year financially, I did encounter rough patches along the way, some of which severely shook my inner foundation.  You may recall the episode I had with the Grandmotherly Client from Hell.  That was the first major shake-up.  That was followed by the defection of a couple of very high net worth clients that moved out of New York.  My dairy was obliterated with fear-based thoughts about whether I had the ability to survive afterwards.  It taught me the true meaning of “this, too, shall pass.”          
• Found ways to feel good- Since physical fitness and nutrition was made a priority that year, I was in better shape at 35 then I was in my twenties.    Not only did I lose 15 to 20 pounds but I was also proudly sporting a hard washboard stomach for the first time!  A person who feels good physically is a person who is bound to feel good mentally.  Seeing how my reality became more favorable while in this state of mind, I discovered by accident how to deliberately find ways to feel good (i.e. eat nutritional food, exercise, watch the sun go down, imagine a cute baby laughing, send a handwritten thank you card, have dinner with a good friend, etc.).   
• Dealing with Disappointments- I had a number of close encounters with prospects whose net worth were in the millions.  Despite my earnest efforts, a handful of potentially lucrative accounts never materialized.  There was a school with a $6 million endowment fund that needed to be invested.  I didn’t get the account.  After being interviewed on national television (CNN news), one lady called to say she wanted to transfer $20 to $30 million worth of investments for me to invest and manage.  After wining and dining her to no end, she turned out to be a fake!  At first I was devastated but I eventually learned how to deal with disappointment by replacing negative thoughts with more empowering ones and move on.      

The amazing thing is that I had been practicing the law of attraction at the time without knowing it!  This lends credence to the fact that some people are able to attract abundance by default.  They behave, think and act like I did.  The difference between today and back then is I now practice the law of attraction consciously.  Back then I didn’t.  Interesting, isn’t it?

Lessons from Dangerous Habits

Excessive Partying- This was a leftover habit from my college days.  During the first ten years after college graduation, I was a party boy, frequenting nightclubs like Studio 54.  In those days, I stumbled around in a fog because I was still partying night after night with no sense of purpose.  But all that changed in February 1995 when I suddenly decided after a night of heavy partying that I was not going to do it anymore.  The incredible clarity I gained afterwards led me to the spiritual journey I am now on.  To use an analogy, I am like the person who suddenly decided to stop eating meat and become a vegetarian for the simple reason that the former no longer fit my new lifestyle.  (Studio 54 Photo Credit:  Mr. Konishi)

Self Esteem Based on Shallow Ideals  - While great things were happening that year, I still had a lot of inner clutter that needed cleaning.  As I was turning the pages, I was shocked to know that I depended on external things to make me happy.  For example, my self worth was dependent on how many messages people left on my answering machine, my bank account balance, the number of people who showed up for a party I threw or the number of times I scored in the bedroom!  Thanks to the life-changing decision, I began to look within for strength.     

Fear- This is was a big one.  One of the biggest was whether or not I would continue to survive in the jungles of Wall Street.  One day my sales manager foretold an ominous warning and said, ”…..if you’re going to survive in this business, you need to be opening bigger and bigger accounts!”  It made my stomach flip with fear.  I handled it by staying in the moment and doing the best I could day by day.  It was all I could do to stop the fear from snowballing.  

Lost of Passion, Enthusiasm, Drive - In early 1996, the pages of my diary was strewn with tales of lost motivation and the struggle to regain it.  It shocked me to read things like, ”I no longer work on the weekends and rarely stay late like I used to.”  Somehow despite the luck-luster interest in the business, I managed to survive another year with respectable earnings.  The lesson learned here is that if and when you lose passion for what you’re doing, what was easy and effortless suddenly turns harder than necessary.     

Special Note:  When I took my semi-annual vacation in April 1996, I had a spiritual revelation on the beach, the story of which you can read about here.  It explains, in part, why I was losing interest toward the end of my career on Wall Street. 

Food for thought:  Have you ever written a diary and taken a look at it lately?  You’d be surprised to see how much you have changed!

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