The Greatest Power In The World
by Enrique Montiel
(2000)

In the fall of 2000 I had just completed participating in the final Olympic Team Training Camp held in Colorado Springs at the US Olympic Training Complex. That year's Olympic Team was to be departing to Sydney, Australia in the days to come. I can remember observing this culminating moment for all involved, athletes, coaches, trainers, family members, and supporting systems. The athletes in the room were obsessively focussed on final refinements to their best skills, the skills they'd each invested countless years and hours learning to master. What George Leonard writes about in his incredible book, "Mastery", was in full effect not only here, but all over the world. Success really is so simple if one does the work. There exists no mysterious secret, all great creation and accomplishment, all things truly worth doing require surrendering to the struggle on the tracks of an effective plan.

I was not on that year's Olympic Team but for years I had trained with them, competed against them, and learned so much in the art of Olympic Level Performance and Personal Mastery from careful study of the beliefs, actions and strategies of this World Class performance environment. In reflection, I continue to feel honored to have had that once in a lifetime opportunity to share the training room firsthand with these devoted super men. They include 8th place finishers, James Gruenwald, Quincey Clark, 10th place finisher Kevin Bracken, Olympic Bronze Medalist, the phenomenal talent, Garrett Lowney, and of course the "Giant Killer" Rulon Gardner who upset the undefeated 3 time Olympic Champion Alexander Karelin of Russia. Their match has become a legendary upset of modern Olympic Games. That particular chapter in my ongoing study of Mastery has established a firsthand understanding of the dynamic forces that separate what is truly success from everything else.

The one thing that I cannot emphasize enough is that no where is success and achievement a chance affair. I could spend days sharing with you the accounts of hundreds of men and women, across dozens of fields, both athletic and non athletic, that would paint a staunch picture of what is required to make miracles happen. That's what we all really want, now, isn't it? We want to master ourselves and our lives. We want to be as consistent and proficient in our lives as someone like Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player of all time, has been at his area of expertise. I want to tell you something Michael has said himself, "I've missed over 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot, and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed." You know, it doesn't matter how or where you start, what matters is how you use the time you have to grow and how ultimately you choose to finish strong.

"You know, it doesn't matter how or where you start, what matters is how you use the time you have to grow and how ultimately you choose to finish strong."
– Enrique Montiel

This lesson is about the fundamental truth that permeates every one of our lives. It is about the thing that in the long run is going to have the deepest impact in who you become, your success, your happiness, the quality of your life, the quality of your character, and ultimately your destiny. This is the singular factor that presents itself in every case when you look at people who are both extraordinarily successful and those who are extraordinary failures. If you think that sounds contradicting I can understand that. This base foundational principle is so important that it represents itself in life as a paradox toward boundless life or terrible misfortune. It happens to be one of the foundational principles that both the Three Keys to Success and Failure and the Living By Design human potential model builds from. There isn't an achiever in the world who has reached their levels of success by means other than this common core influence.

This principle is no secret by any means either. What do you think it is? What is this Master's Key, as one of my contemporaries, Jim Britt, would call it? What is it that makes the biggest difference in the quality of people's lives that if it changes affects every area of life 7/52? (Seven days a week, fifty two weeks of the year)

The answer is not money. The answer is not more education. The answer is not more self esteem either. The answer is something that ties all those things together. The answer to the question is everywhere around you, if you know what to look for. Once upon a time I met up with Robin Zander, the lead singer of the rock band Cheap Trick. He told me that his group's success was the result of this singular factor. While talking to him I couldn't help remembering back to being a kid in San Diego at one of the houses I grew up in. I would open up the garage door and crank up this horrible sounding stereo to an Elvis Presley cover they had recorded, "Don't Be Cruel." I'd dance like mad looping the song over and over again with my neighbors across the street joining in until they got tired of hearing the same song twenty something times. What a treat to meet this legend.

Everyone I've mentioned has to credit their success to the powerful influence of environment - birth given or manufactured. They are who they are because of the respective environments they've lived in. Specifically, they are who they are as a result of the Optimum Environments they have spent their lives in. These environments have shaped them into the human beings they have become and because they have spent enough of their lives immersed in an optimum environment to get them the results they were after they are successful. That's the secret! If you place yourself completely in the right environment, and surrender to its influence, you virtually guarantee your success. The power of environmental immersion is literally an unstoppable force that cuts off any other possibilities. The right environment will offer the greatest guarantee of success, the wrong one will result in failure.

"Man is not the creature of circumstance,
circumstances are the creatures of men."
–Benjamin Disraeli

I have found that what truly distinguishes people from succeeding or failing is rarely ever their capability, but almost always their motivation. What is happening when you are immersed in the optimum environment for what you're working to accomplish is you are putting on side blinders that prevent you from getting distracted and they keep you constantly focused on moving ahead in the right direction. You are constantly motivated because nothing else exists in your mind's eye. That's the synergistic effect of putting yourself in the perfect environment.

I once interviewed the Olympic Coach Dan Gable, a gentleman who represents one of the greatest levels of performance consistency in history. He created a dynasty as a coach at the University of Iowa that is unparalleled even by the accomplishments of other legends such as basketball's John Wooden. Gable said to me that environment singularly played the most powerful role in his drive toward his successful accomplishments.

Realize, understand, adopt, people who are living their dreams and producing extraordinary results have found a way to consistently motivate themselves to keep going regardless of unexpected adversity and circumstance. They have found a way, again and again, to keep moving forward no matter what. And I want to tell you that their undying motivation, desire, drive, and ultimate success comes from the environment they reside in day to day. It's from the people, places, things that they've chosen to have completely encompass their lives. These things are what provide the relentless example for their achievement and it is what challenges them to expand and grow on an ongoing basis whether they feel like it or not.

This concept of Optimum Environment is not reserved for a privileged few. It's something you have to claim for yourself. It's something that is a birthright given to each of us and it's begging for us to decide to own it! Benjamin Disraeli said man is not the creature of circumstance, circumstances are the creatures of men. Oprah Winfrey, the talk show legend, has proven this. Inspirational speaker Rhonda Britten has proven it as well. It is not what happens in life that matters, it is what we do with what happens. The glue that makes it all stick is called Environment. Remember, just because you were born into a certain environment does not mean you have to stay there if it doesn't encourage you to get the most out of your true life vision. You are the only one who makes that choice, and you are the only one who reaps the rewards one way or the other.

I want to challenge you to "take a look around the block." It's smaller than ever. Ask around. Become acutely sensitive to noticing the Environment Factor in everything around you. I want you to be able to consciously choose to unchain yourself from archaic beliefs you may have picked up a long time ago that are keeping you unconsciously loyal to rotten roots.

Here's a couple of questions to ponder:

1. How is your current environment helping you or hurting you to achieve your goals and dreams?
2. How can you optimize your environement by changing and expanding it with people, places and things that will give you the greatest possibility of success?

Make your life a memorable masterpiece!

All the best,
Enrique Montiel

Enrique Montiel is originally a San Diego, California native. He now resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado where he is authoring new books, developing several 21st century businesses, lecturing, training, consulting and continuing revolutionary human potential research & discovery.

Contact: enrique@enriquemontiel.com, www.enriquemontiel.com, 719 227-7177

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