Dov Baron

Dov Baron is the president of the Baron Mastery Institute and the creator of several learning systems.

If today were my last day on Earth and I could share 500 words of brilliance with the world, here are the important things I'd want to pass along to others...

Pride Comes Before A Fall But What Comes After It?

Success is knowing what not to do!

Remember having that feeling that there was something more out there? That you were meant for something special? You had a purpose, a reason for being here you were meant for something BIG? Well, what would you do if you have those feelings of greatness and hope but all you saw around you is darkness, despair and poverty? What if you lived in a place where dreams are crushed and you are told you are crazy for even having any.

This was the life I was born into, but refused to accept. Lower Brougton, an inner city ghetto in the city of Salford in Northern England was at that time a place where dreams died faster than the babies of teen age girls were born. I am guessing not many of you know Salford, it was an industrial city where you were lucky if you only looked 60 at the age of 40! Almost everything in that environment was toxic. The pollution was so dense that we could not walk outside without having a black ring on the collar of our shirts. It made the air of L.A. seem like a sweet country town.

If you came to my neighborhood, you would always see children running around on the streets in and out of each others houses, carefree and oblivious to the toxicity of the environment except for on Fridays. On Fridays that carefree running around turned into a quiet, palpable tension because on Fridays the rent man cometh and when the rent man would come, very often my mother would gather myself and my siblings, I being the eldest, and we would hide. Not in the house because chances of being found were too high. You see, when the rent man came and knocked on the door, if there was no answer he would flip the letter box open and look inside. Instead, since we had no indoor plumbing, we would hide in the outhouse. I remember my mother standing on top of the toilet carrying all us kids so that when the rent man went around the back of the house and looked under the door of the toilet he wouldn't see us.

I know what poverty is. I know what it's all about. I've been there. I know what it's like to live in an environment that keeps you down. I know what it's like to have the mindset that will do its best to keep you poor, no matter what changes in your outer environment.

Tony Robbins said "Find somebody's who's successful and do what they do and you too will be successful". However, what do you do when there's nobody around who's successful? What do you do when there's no successful model? Where I was from, there were no models for success and very few for real happiness. Everybody I knew lived in financial and all too often emotional and mental abject poverty.

Many wanted to escape, few did. The way some escaped their harsh reality was they either went to jail, joined the army or, be it physically or emotionally, they died. None of the above had much appeal to me. I decided upon another path, to learn what not to do. This is probably one of the most important lessons I can offer people who want to achieve any level of success: Don't just learn what to do but learn what not to do as well. Knowing that you must do 'X' to get to where you want to go very important. However, knowing 'why' you must do 'X' is even more important. The 'why' provides the emotional fuel you will need when times are getting extra tough and one of the best places to find your 'why', is by becoming extra clear about what not to do!

By the time I was 21 my why was big enough to get me out. I left my hometown and went on to travel the world. I studied with many masters in a variety of disciplines and philosophies. I used those teachings to help connect me to what I believe is my life purpose: raising the consciousness of the world by helping people become who they were born to be before the world told them who they 'should' be.

Just nine years later, I had lived in different cultures on three different continents and by the age of 30, I had a very successful private practice and had done a speaking tour of Australia and two in North America. I was ON FIRE and NOTHING could stop me.

It is said that pride comes before a fall but what comes after it? What happens after you fall 120 feet down a mountain, crash into jagged rocks at 70 miles an hour, and then defy all the laws of physics by getting up and walking?

In 1990, at the age of 32, I was at the top of my game and I was what many would call an adrenaline junkie.

Imagine this you are climbing a mountain at 120 feet...There are no ropes. Adrenaline is pumping through your veins. Imagine what it would be like to look up and see the rock you have just grabbed dislodging. Feel what it would be like to instantly know that in that moment the life you have known as your own is about to end. I don't have to imagine it, it happened: I fell 120 ft and landed on my face and shattered every bone in it.

But now to my question, what comes after the fall? Well two things: Firstly, everything I knew to be me - all values, beliefs, behavioral patterns - were destroyed and, secondly, in rebuilding my shattered self, I realized how only a close shave with death could have woken me up from the stupor which I called reality.

The greatest gift that I could have gotten from that fall, which resulted in horrific disfigurement and physical debilitation, was being forced to lie quietly, look inwards and ponder why my life had come to such a screeching halt.

When I would look in the mirror what looked back at me was pretty scary. However, when I lay there quietly with myself and looked inward what I saw was even more horrific.... I may have fallen off a mountain but the mountain although very real, was for me a metaphor for a self imposed pedestal I'd climbed up onto. When my face smashed to pieces due to the fall, I had to dissociate from the ego presence which it represented and so, with a dismantled face - and a dismantled ego - I had to question who I really was underneath.

I am not going to lie, there were many moments where I was not more than a second away from throwing in the towel but there was something that just wouldn't let me. That something was bigger than me and that was my purpose. Many spend years looking specifically for their purpose without realizing that it's right under their nose. A life purpose can be a career but it is by no means limited to a career. Your purpose begins with the knowing that there must be more and the burning desire to find it.

It is now almost 18 years later and two weeks ago I had one of the first of another series of oral surgeries due to the injuries I suffered in the fall. But I do not focus on that. What I do focus on is that I have a very successful private practice and speaking career and I live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world in a penthouse apartment with a panoramic view of mountains and the entire city. I am married to the woman of my dreams and I wake up everyday on fire and excited about what it is that I do to live my dream, to fulfill my purpose.

My purpose, my dream, my mission, was always there I just had to come to a grinding halt to really see what it was: to raise the consciousness of the world. To help people connect with their inner power and become who they were born to be. I'm not here to teach, but to inform, share, remind and stimulate, using high-powered information and the strong emotional impact of laughter. So, don't bother putting me up on a pedestal, I remember what happened last time I got up on one of those.