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The Importance of Personal Development

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I came to the conclusion that I had screwed up my life many years ago. Then I did it again…and again…and again. So where does one begin “un-screwing up” life and not repeating the process of “screwing up” one’s life?

I had determined that I wanted to get my undergraduate degree in business and go on to get my MBA while I was attending Florida State University. It was not “in the cards,” and I joined the Navy in January 1986. I graduated from the U.S. Navy’s nuclear training pipeline and became a real-life nuclear mechanical operator in the fleet. It was insanely hard work. After I got out of the Navy, I had already proven (at least to myself) that I was just as smart (if not smarter) than other people with college degrees. I did not pursue my degree after receiving my Honorable Discharge. After all, I was already “smart enough.”

I went into business for myself immediately after getting out of the Navy. I didn’t realize that I could fail. I had what I thought was plenty of money from investing when I was in the Navy. I had a string of successes that indicated to me that I had the “Midas touch.” I fell flat on my face after about 3 months. I quickly came to the realization that I had no idea what I was doing. I got a job as a manager in a jewelry store chain and was promoted to manager in about 7 months. I understood the basics of running a business. I was somewhat successful again and I thought I had the “Midas touch” again.

Then, another business oportunity found me and I went for it. Someone had told me about a book called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I read it and applied the reading to my life the best I could…and nothing happened. I saw the book as a mystical sort of thing. Just think about wealth and wealth would come…kind of like praying for wealth and my prayers would be answered. Nothing happened. I asked my mentor at the time what the problem was. He told me that I wasn’t successsful in my chosen business because I hadn’t paid the price of success yet. I asked him what that price was. He replied that I would have to determine that myself. A few months later, I quit my job and failed again…this time with disastrous results. I again blamed it on what I didn’t know.

I became a big fan of reading books and improving who I was mentally. After all, the people I admired the most at the time were all “self-made” entrepreneurs. Along with my initial successful business experience as a retail manager, I had begun investing in building a great personal library, reading Success magazine and learning as much as I could in business. I joined a business book club and once or twice a month I would recieve books like The Portable MBA series. I didn’t realize I was investing in myself.

Now, my personal development library is quite large. Some of the authors that are in my library include Jim Rohn, Brian Tracy, Anthony Robbins, Robert Kiyosaki, Steve Farber, Denis Waitley, Sun Tzu, Miyomato Musashi, Dr. Joe Vitale and more. I have read almost all of the books in my library. Some had a great effect on me and my results and some didn’t. Some kept me awake at night and some didn’t. Some changed my life and some didn’t. I’ll return to a book I had read or an audio that I had listened to and learn something I hadn’t noticed before. That book or recording that didn’t change my life a year ago is all of the sudden having a profound effect after a year.

That last sentence sums up what I think is the importance of having a personal development library. The object is to improve my life, to get a little better everyday. Some people want to make the world a better place and I think that’s great. However, I have noticed that the people who are most effective at making their world a better place have begun with improving themselves and adding one more better person to the world.

Re-Beginning the Begin

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So, I “began” this blog in January and I like it as my personal blogging home…except I haven’t blogged anything. “So, what have you been doing since January?” you might be asking. It would seem that I have been doing a whole lot of nothing, but this is hardly the case. Among other things, I have been thinking a lot about how to begin this blog and looking for the inspiration to get started blogging again. For those who didn’t realize that I was blogging before, I began blogging in October 2005, when I was “living” in a vacant hotel room in south Florida at Yahoo right before Hurricane Wilma redesigned the State of Florida (I was very broke at the time). This is where my blogging began. I also did some blogging at MySpace for a while, until I discovered Facebook. I thought that I would just blog at Facebook, but FB is more of a personal site for me (notice the lack of a link).

So then, I found myself writing blogs again and saving them in Microsoft Word on my hard drive. I had gotten into the habit of writing them out first and then publishing them later. My computer always seemed to freeze when I was almost finished and the entire posting would be lost. Then, I realized this work habit wouldn’t work with this new platform. I solved the problem of my computer freezing. So, for the last couple of months I have been thinking of how to start this blog.

My typing skills sucked, so I had to learn how to type. I never took typing in school, because we communicated by tying notes to rocks and throwing them at each other. It was much more painful than email, but I never thought that our primitive system would ever be replaced. My typing skills still suck, but they are getting better.

Today, it donned on me. “Just do it.” In many ways, the famous Nike slogan is what we need to remember when starting a new project, a new business or anything new. “Just do it.”

Now that I have all sorts of inspiration to start blogging again, here it is…the beginning (again).

More to follow…lots more!

MBN

P.S. My high school English teacher (and all of my friends that are now teachers) will probably have a field day with this…oh well!

First, who is Michael Neely?

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Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Michael Neely and I am an entrepreneur, a salesman, and a businessman. I am a voracious reader, proponent of personal development/improvement and student of life…which I intend to be the purpose of this blog site. You might be asking “What do you know about success?” As I have lived my life (and continue to do so), the real question became about what I didn’t know about success.

I grew up in a small suburb of Birmingham, AL where I graduated high school. I was a state championship soccer player my sophomore year in high school and made the equivalent of an “All-State” team. I went to Florida State University for one semester where I majored in English, Physics and partying. I “accelerated my career” in physics by joining the U.S. Navy and served as a nuclear mechanical operator on board USS Shark until October 1989. My first business attempt was as a distributor for a credit card company that went bankrupt three months after I began marketing for them. My first civilian job was as an assistant manager in a now-defunct jewelry store chain. I was always one of the top sales people in the company and got my store in Meridian, MS. I completed the 18 month managerial training course in about 7 months. I then started my second business, quit my job and failed again. After a few more personal and business failures, I blamed it on my hometown and moved to south Florida in March 2002. I quickly realized that it was not Birmingham’s fault. I became a commodities options and futures broker and found myself sleeping on a park picnic table in Coral Springs, FL and waiting tables at Chili’s. It was like the scene from the movie “Falling Down” with Michael Douglas when he realized he was not “economically viable.”

It was June 13, 2003 and I re-began my life with everything I could carry, a pen and notebook. A couple of “old friends” “rescued” me, took me to Palm Beach Gardens and soon I found myself sleeping on picnic tables or anywhere I could…again. I continued to build the same business I crashed in Birmingham and successfully did just that. Then, in November 2006, the bank shut down my business by closing my overdrawn business checking account. In December 2006, I was exposed to my next business and I began again. A dilemna arrived when I had to attend a business conference in Atlanta. I was so broke at the time, that I told my mentor that if I attended the meeting in Atlanta, I would have to move there. His reply was “And?” In January 2007, I moved to Atlanta got a job waiting tables and re-began my new business and consequently, my life. That gets us close enough to where we are now.

Now, the blog posts will stray away from the negative aspects and events of my life and illustrate the lessons I have learned since I moved to Atlanta. This is where I really re-began my career and upon the way started building a series of small personal successes that will inevitably translate into much larger successes.

The point of this post is to introduce myself and point out a few of the struggles and challenges I have overcome. I’m sure that it’s not the end of my challenges, but I will certainly recover much faster with the experience I have behind me.

If this blog shares just a little bit of insight to help someone else avoid a setback or overcome a challenge, then its purpose will have been served.

More to follow…

MBN