Stanley F. Bronstein – Personal Development BlogPersonal Development Blog of the Founder of the Achievement IQ Movement and Creator of the Laws of Positioning

Introduction

Achievement IQ Moments

What exactly is an Achievement IQ Moment? I’ve been asked that question so many times, I’ve lost count.

Quite simply, an Achievement IQ Moment is bestError! Bookmark not defined. thought of as an “ah-ha” life-altering moment in one’s life – in effect, an epiphany. The best way to explain it is to tell you my story.

I can think of four life-altering moments in my life:

The death of my mother when I was eight years old;

Deciding to go to law school when I was twenty-eight;

Deciding to write this book and to conduct my research for it by embarking upon the Achievement IQ (AIQ) – Vision Quest Tour 2007; and

Coming up with the concept behind the Laws of Positioning.

Let’s analyze each of these “moments” in a little more detail.

The Death of My Mother

The older I get, the more I’ve come to believe that my mother knew she was dying, almost from the moment I was born. I’ve had people tell me she often said she’d never live to see my thirteenth birthday.

She pushed me, prodded me and constantly fed me with books and information. Basically, she tried to teach me as much as she could, in the limited amount of time she knew she had left. In effect, she instilled in me a love of learning and a love for the process of thinking.

Under normal circumstances, that might not have been the case. She may not have pushed me so hard, or ignited the spark for learning I have to this day.

There’s a saying by Nietzsche: “That which does not kill you makes you stronger.” The death of my mother at such an early age in my life impacted me greatly. While I continued to function, I have no doubt that it held me back in many ways. However, that’s all in the past. I now realize that going through such a traumatic event, at such an early age, made me a much stronger person. In effect, I believe I’m much better than I would have been otherwise.

Law School

When I was twenty-eight, I was working with my older brother, Martin, in a real estate company we founded in 1985. In addition, I’d already become a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). I had an established background, and getting additional education was definitely not foremost in my thoughts.

Then one day, Martin asked me to draw up a real estate lease. This wasn’t the first time he’d asked me to do so. Bear in mind that drawing up a real estate lease is typically considered a legal matter, best left for lawyers. Nevertheless, I had worked on several in the past, as I seemed to have an aptitude for those types of matters.

When I presented a draft of the lease to Martin for his review, there was one clause he didn’t like, to the extent that we got into a heated argument about it. I kept telling him I was right, and he kept saying I was wrong. While literally “screaming” at me, some words of wisdom came out of his mouth. He said: “You know what you ought to do? You ought to go to law school.”

Fortunately, I was listening. As I like to tell people, instead of punching him, I did something different – I signed up for law school. A few years later, I was a lawyer, and my life totally changed as a result. I shudder to think of how my life would be different had I not listened to him.

Writing This Book – AIQ Vision Question Tour 2007

A little history is in order here. I’ve previously written two other books: Achievement IQ: Find Purpose In Your LIFE & Achieve Massive Success (2005); and Achievement IQ: Find Purpose In Your CAREER & Achieve Massive Success (2006).

Not long ago, I decided to take a one-week vacation at Canyon Ranch Spa in Tucson, Arizona, to begin work on my third book, on the subject of Teamwork. It was a very successful vacation and, in fact, I completed about half of the book during that week.

Then a funny thing happened. I got stuck. I lost much of my enthusiasm to complete the book, even though it was half finished. A week or two later, I woke up at 2:00 a.m. (as I often do), and had a revelation. I awakened my wife and said:

“Sweetie, I’m writing the wrong book. People want to hear about other people’s stories. They want to hear interesting stories, such as my own. I’m going to go around the country and interview a wide variety of massively successful people and get them to share their stories. Also, I’m going to drive, rather than fly, to meet with them.”

I did some quick calculations and told her I’d be going on the road for at least a month straight, without coming home. She wasn’t too receptive to the idea (in fact she told me I was nuts), and then rolled over and went back to sleep.

Later that morning, we discussed it some more and I told her this was something I not only wanted to do, but had to do. I’d always wanted to embark upon a vision quest in my life, and this was going to be it. I was going to spend more than a month on the road, and meet people who’d change my life, forever!

While she didn’t like the idea, and while it was hard on her having me away for so long, she went along with it. For that, I owe her a tremendous debt of gratitude.

How crazy was my driving tour? I’ll let you decide. Over a period of fifty days, I covered more than 10,292 miles in 179 hours and 36 minutes.

The Laws of Positioning

After completing the first leg of my tour in Hawaii, I returned to Arizona and interviewed a few people locally. One of them and I started discussing the “Laws of Attraction,” which are a major part of the popular movement known as “The Secret.”

During our discussion, we agreed that, while we thought the laws of attraction are very important, there was something missing. I wasn’t totally sure what it was, but it started the wheels turning in my mind.

Returning to my office, I started thinking some more. I went through notes from my previous books, and then it struck me what was missing – Positioning! The most successful people not only recognize opportunities and act upon them, but they actually put themselves in a position to have opportunities come their way, and to be ready to act upon them swiftly once they do.

Then, I started writing down an initial list of what I considered to be the Laws of Positioning. Within forty-five minutes, I not only came up with the concept, but put together an initial list.

After creating this list, I realized that, in effect, the entire Achievement IQ Vision Quest 2007 tour was nothing more than putting myself in a position to meet some of the most interesting people in the country, and to act upon any opportunities that arose from meeting them. I didn’t know what I’d find when I met them, but I knew I was ready to react to whatever I did find.

Those are four of the key moments that have changed my life forever. So fasten your seat belts and hang on, because the fifty chapters that follow contain similar stories, from some of the most interesting people in the United States.

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