"Gimme five!"

The next time someone says “Gimme Five!” offer them these five tips that lead to true celebration.

Believe everything happens for our greater good. There is a needed lesson in every adversity we encounter. When we learn the lesson, we stop having to deal with that adversity. If we fail to learn it, we get to continue to encounter it. Always ask, “What can I learn from this?”

If you understand multiplication, you understand success. Time is the great multiplier. One productive action taken each day, multiplied over time, will propel us to the achievement of our goals — no matter how lofty we’ve set them. The longer we wait to begin, the farther behind we fall, and the more likely we are to remain — exactly where we are.

To succeed at anything, make it a study. It’s said the average adult in America reads only one book each year. Imagine the opportunities that would unfold if we read a book about our chosen passion every week! No time, you say? Consider books on tape. This business now exceeds $1 billion in annual sales. You can turn unproductive, boring drive time into exciting learning time.

Ask the right questions. Several times a year we’re forced to look at the larger questions of life. A friend dies. A crisis appears. An accident befalls us. These types of events cause us to explore those things in life that truly matter. Why am I here? Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? Who made me?

When we sincerely ask these questions, we are led to answers. Most people push these questions aside and fall back into their “real life.” The truth is, our “real life” is not that television show, that job, those bills or even that sports championship. They are merely distractions that keep us away from real life. People on their deathbeds rarely say, “I wish I’d spent more time at the office” or “more time watching television.”

By continually asking the right questions of ourselves we retain the larger perspective of our life that is so easy to lose. What could be worse than living our entire lives only to find out when they are over, we had never gotten around to pursuing the reason we were sent here for in the first place?

Do something in the service of others. It need not be a big deal. A smile to a harried clerk. An extra second of eye contact with that smiling stranger. A word of compliment to a friend. A quarter dropped in the Salvation Army kettle. We increase our value to the world with every act of service we provide. Ask, “What can I do for others today?”

There is nothing more exciting then allowing the person you are today to take a look at the person you want to become. Once committed to becoming that improved person inside, everything you achieve outside becomes ten times sweeter.