My Name is Peggy Pattison, author of 11 books and "How to Guides" on empowering your life through knowledge and helping people to learn and perform.

As a young person in a highly troubled family, I learned early in life that to become empowered as a person, you had to have a good education. Remember, our folks telling us, get an education, that is something no one can take away from you. As I grew up and lost my Mother to suicide and became a widow at age 23, I still hung onto my empowerment through knowledge and training philosophy. I became a college teacher at age 22 and helped young people understand the empowerment of knowledge and education. I moved into the corporate world and watched thousands of employees learn and perform in my role in corporate training as a Regional Vice-President. Indeed, I saw that continuous learning in life is certainly the key to success and becoming a happy and confident person.

Napoleon Hill studied thousands of successful people before he wrote, Think and Grow Rich and he reported 17 different success characteristics of people who are highly successful. As I think about people becoming more empowered in their careers and daily lives, five of those principles and characteristics stand out: 1) Have a burning desire for success, 2) Have specialized knowledge, get the best training and know your business better than anyone, 3) Be decisive in nature - our society teaches us to deliberate a long time and then make a decision, successful people, however, are able to make good and quick decisions, 4) Have a clear goal and don't let anyone get you off track, and 5) Surround yourself with successful people - stay away from people and situations that are not!

I also do a lot of speaking to community groups, and business and industry, one of my favorite motivational speakers, Lou Holtz, talks a lot about extraordinary people. He says that the only difference between extraordinary and ordinary is effort. Extraordinary people are simply willing to do the things that ordinary are not because ordinary people are basically lazy! Wow! So, it would appear fairly easy to be extraordinary and empowered to be successful; we get to choose now that our consciousness has been raised!

I do believe that empowerment and living your highest potential is a choice! Also remember, Napoleon Hill said successful people are decisive-decide today to empower yourself through knowledge - knowledge you can gain simply through a variety of sources - travel, helping other people, gaining specialized knowledge for improving your life and work.

Victor Frankl, Jewish psychologist, wrote Man's Search for Meaning and there he talked about the choice of our own personal attitudes. Life provides many opportunities for us for sure, some of which are challenges, as we choose positively we become more empowered as people to control the successful outcomes of our lives. In my first book, At First You Fly and Then You Cry, I talk about survivors and thrivers from adversity, which are you?

So, today, I challenge you to choose to be extraordinary, choose to be happy, and choose to learn in order to live to your highest life's purpose and potential!

You may visit my website at www.PeggyPattison.com and discover how I empower people like you to learn and perform. My brand identity is Simplify, Participate Actively, and Celebrate your life and your successes.

Again, I'm Peggy Pattison wishing you a totally powerful day!

Reprinted with permission from Peggy J. Pattison, Copyright@2005