The only thing that can hold you back, is yourself.

What's holding you back?

What are you worth?

It's a simple question with a full range of answers. If you never have asked yourself what are you worth, maybe today is the day you do. We all need to understand how important each and everyone of us is to this world. In fact, without you there would be no me. It's a simple idea really, we all live in this world, we all seek to better ourselves, and we want the best in any scenario. The problem is many of us grew up with a sense of being lost. Not all of us were lucky enough to grow up with 2 supportive parents, who were financially stable, who were caring, understanding and seemed to know all the solutions at any given time. In fact, many of us had the view point from the other side of things. Maybe some of us came from a single parent,  or a struggling household, or maybe some of us even came from no stable household at all..and that shaped how we view things to this day.

I'm here to tell you, to let go of that past, and re-evaluate for the future. Not one of you reading this is destined to be a failure, or not be successful. We are all are here to do great things. So what are you worth? I say you are worth more then you know. It just depends on how hard you're willing to work on things.

Do you deserve happiness?
Of course! But happiness will never come to those who do not seek it. It only begins to see the light in you when you decide to be happy.  Many of us concentrate on the negative of it all. The broken relationships, the long days at work, the general loneliness, but we live in a world that is deeper then those simple negative ideas. Think about it, the very fact that you are reading this on a computer screen or a mobile phone speaks wonders on how lucky you are in this world.

Never let a little discouragement take you away from your bigger plan. Sit down and think about what it is that you want to accomplish, have a definite goal, write it down, say it out loud and believe it.  Say it so much to everyone you know, say it in front of a mirror, say it out loud to the world even if no one is around, because the moment you truly believe that you can, is when things will start to change.

You want to start a business? Believe and trust that you are the best, and just go for it. Want to get in shape and restart your life, just do it. Believe that you can. It doesn't matter if it's 10 pounds or 150 pounds...your mind is the only thing in this world that will limit you from success. The very mind that you ultimately control. So what's stopping you. You're worth more then what you even know.

There may be days when you feel low, or opinions that are told to you may have more of an impact then it should, but just let it go. When someone says you can't, know that you simply could. It all starts with understanding what you are worth. It's a simple combination on mind, body and spirit. The combination of those 3 makes you unstoppable. It makes you know and truly believe that you are worth it. Because for the first time in your life, when you ask yourself how much you are worth..you can smile and happily say "I am priceless"

If life's randomness was so random, would you have still ended up here?

I was recently asked if I felt that life was a a whole bunch of random events that you help create and push forward, or was it carved in stone to be lived out like chapters in a book. My first reaction was simple and to the point "I make my own life, and I decide where it goes" I said, though in the back of my head a little voice said "really?" Though the conversation was a pleasant one, that went in many directions, it left me thinking about my life in its entirety from my earliest childhood memory to this very moment as I write and share my ideas with all of you. So it got me thinking..what if it's both? Random and scripted all at once...

All I have is my life to really dissect and to look back on, so I'll tell you a few things about me. See, if you would have told me that I would be a professional musician, traveling and living this kind of life when I was a child I would have laughed, and then probably got mad at you. Growing up wasn't the easiest thing to do, there were always issues with my family, whether it was close relatives or long distance ones. But being the youngest of 8, I just assumed that's how it would always be. But as Kanye West once said in a song of his "That's Family Business" So I just learned how to accept and adapt.

My mother raised me on her own, and though it was strict as a typical Puerto Rican household would normally be, she always made me take my studies seriously. I was never able to "hang out" in the neighborhood,  but instead I was home from school early, doing my homework with little playtime. Funny thing is now, when I look back, that was such an amazing thing she did for me and I'm so thankful.

I'm not sure why my mother raised me the way she did, maybe she just wanted things to be better for me when I grew up, or maybe it was just random and it was just her idea of what being a mother is. You see, I attended a public school in the Bronx, and after finishing the 3rd grade new zoning rules went into affect and they forced me to transfer. I found myself to be kinda quiet at the time, so changing didn't really make a difference to me. In fact, it was just another thing to deal with. But what I didn't know was that it probably changed my life. Before I left the first school I took a few citywide exams, and the interesting thing was I did pretty good. Actually, it was a perfect score.

When I went to the new school and they look at those scores,  they decided to put me into a program for what they called "gifted" children. Kids that excelled in all aspects. Through what ever randomness this world had put in motion for me, it allowed me to get accepted a special program for Junior High School. That's where music came in, it was meant to open my mind to expand my knowledge in my studies, but to me...I fell in love.

Because I went to that school, It paved the way for me to attend LaGuardia H.S for performing arts, which opened my ears to jazz music, which allowed me to attend the Litchfield Jazz Camp and meet some of my closest friends, which helped me get into a music conservatory, which allowed me to continually perfect my craft, which forced me to grow up and look at life different.

My outlook in life was so different 10+ years ago, I only saw the goodness and happiness every so often, but music and the last 10 years made my eyes and mind open. I learned to stop and look around and see the beauty of it all. To listen and respond, to help and to care for those I barely know. It was my mother who started the seed for all this, but it was the years of living, the individuals I met along the way that helped shape me. It was those people that made me realize success is all about a mindset, not a specific act. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every year made me who I am this very moment.

I can look back in life thus far and know that I'm happy. And there is nothing random about that. I made the decision to be happy, to live every day as it is meant to be lived, to pick up my horn and create music, to affect my fellow human beings in any positive way I can. The sadness from my past, the confusion of childhood, the search for a deeper meaning,  only makes my success in the present feel even more amazing.

It took me 27 years of trial and error to come to this point. So was it random, or was it scripted like a well written play? I say it again, it's a little bit of both. But unlike a play or a movie, I can't start from the beginning all over again whenever I deicide. But, what I can do is sketch out my next few chapters and see where it goes. I can see how clever "randomness" can be. Because it can always come to this.. "If life's randomness was so random, would I have still ended up here?"

Albert Rivera

"Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature." Eric Hoffer

A quote about reaching your goals

"Only those who have the habit of going the second mile ever find the end of the rainbow."- Napoleon Hill

It is a fact of life that most of us try and fail many times before we ultimately achieve the level of success that we desire. You can expect to travel the extra mile many times only to find fool’s gold at the end of your rainbow. But you will most certainly miss out on the great riches that await you if you quit trying. A superficial commitment to doing more than expected based only on what you expect to receive will not sustain you in the long term. Great achievement results from a commitment to do the right thing regardless of the consequences, and that commitment will ultimately lead you to the pot of gold at the end of your rainbow.


For more inspirational quotes and more info on Napoleon Hill go to http://www.naphill.org

Lesson about adversity from N.Hill

A word from the great mind of Napoleon Hill - Enjoy!

"If you don’t know why you failed, you are no wiser than when you began"

There’s an old adage that those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. So it is with our failures. Unless we learn from our mistakes, we are likely to repeat them until we learn from such experiences and correct our course — or give up and accept temporary defeat as permanent failure. Every setback you encounter in life contains valuable information that, if you study it carefully, will eventually lead you to success. Without adversity, you would never develop wisdom, and without wisdom, success would be short lived indeed. When you make a mistake, say, “That’s good! I?ve gotten that out of the way. I will never do that again.” You will no doubt make other mistakes, but they won’t bother you nearly as much when you treat them as learning experiences.

http://www.naphill.org/

A letter about life written by the great Napoleon Hill

I hope that everyone who takes a moment to read this letter becomes inspired as I did, as I continue to do. I am grateful for being able to learn from Napoleon Hill. For teaching people that helping...is the greatest wealth of all.

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       "Life, you can’t subdue me because I refuse to take your discipline too seriously. When you try to hurt me, I laugh-and the laughter knows no pain. I appreciate your joys wherever I find them; your sorrows neither frighten nor discourage me, for there is laughter in my soul.

       Temporary defeat does not make me sad. I simply set music to the words of defeat and turn it into a song. Your tears are not for me, for I like laughter much better, and because I like it, I use it as a substitute for grief and sorrow and pain and disappointment.

       Life, you are a fickle trickster-don’t deny it. You slipped the emotion of love into my heart so that you might use it as a thorn with which to prick my soul-but I learned to dodge your trap with laughter. You tried to lure me with the desire for gold, but I have fooled you by following the trail which leads to knowledge instead. You induced me to build beautiful friendships-then converted my friends to enemies so you may harden my heart, but I sidestepped your figure on this by laughing off your attempts and selecting new friends in my own way.

      You caused men to cheat me at trade so I will become distrustful, but I won again because I possess one precious asset which no man can steal-it is the power to think my own thoughts and to be myself. You threaten me with death, but to me death is nothing worse than a long peaceful sleep, and sleep is the sweetest of human experiences-excepting laughter. You build a fire of hope in my heart, then sprinkle water on the flames, but I can go you one better by rekindling the fire-and I laugh at you once more.

     You have nothing that can lure me away from laughter, and you are powerless to scare me into submission. To a life of laughter, then, I raise my cup of cheer!”

Napoleon Hill