Welcome to Afterburner Success Partners!
Welcome to Afterburner Success Partners (ASP), absuccesspartners.com. My name is David Giustozzi and I established ASP to help you, your children, family, friends, or anyone you care about, achieve their lifetime dreams and live their best life. Help them out and forward them this post right now! I already know the questions you are asking yourself right now: “Who is this guy?” “Why should I spend my time reading any further?”, “What’s in it for me?”, and “Why shouldn’t I just hit the delete button?” These are excellent questions for you or anyone you know who wants to see big dreams bloom to life. I encourage you to read further so I can answer these and other questions for you. You will be glad you did!
You will learn more about ASP and me in subsequent blogs. For a few moments, I’d like to ask you to stay with me. Over the years, through my work as a parent, family member, business leader, teacher, church small group leader, or Tulsa Overcoming Job Transition ( https://ojttulsa.org ) volunteer helping folks who are out of work, I’ve had an opportunity to talk to a lot of people. As I talk to folks, I have the chance to ask a lot of questions. Acting in the capacities I just mentioned, often my goal is to assist people in growing, learning, or satisfying an immediate need such as a job. After I get to know someone a little bit, my next question is typically “What do you want out of life?”
What do you want out of life?
As you can tell by this question, I’m looking further down the road, past the next job, the next class, the next promotion, or even just tomorrow. I’m probing to see what people want over their lifetime. Because if we can determine the answer to that question, we can determine what needs to be done today to begin that journey. So you can achieve your dreams and live your best life.
I want to be happy and successful
Most people cannot readily answer. As they think about it for a little bit, there are typically one of two responses. The first is “I just want to be happy.” The second is “I want to be successful.” As I probe a bit and people think more about it, being happy or successful usually means they want to get what they dream about, dreams they have had for a long time. Happy and successful are often a state of mind, an intangible, such as “I want to be with someone I love and who cares for me”, or “I want to live an enjoyable life and not need anything.” Digging a little deeper, I eventually learned that becoming happy or successful will require satisfying needs such as earning more money, improving health or relationships, or a series of many small accomplishments that add up to happiness or success. Again, it is usually as simple as the desire to fulfill a dream or a series of dreams. Before we move on to dreams, this begs the question “How happy are we?” See the addendum at the bottom for the shocking answer to that question.
We all have dreams
All of us have dreams in life. All of us want to realize those dreams. Think for a minute, what are your dreams? They may include buying or paying off a house, paying off student loan debt, buying a car, traveling and vacations, saving for a child’s college, or ensuring enough money for an enjoyable retirement. On the other hand, your dreams may be simpler: more leisure time, reduced stress, spending time with family, or any of countless low-cost and enjoyable activities. Everyone wants to “be successful” and have peace of mind. Some of us can’t seem to make that happen. ASP can help you.
How can you learn to develop successful plans and action steps to realize your dreams? Allow me to explain the Afterburner Success Partners process and how our way is different from anything you have seen before.
We work with you directly to decide what is important to you. Together, and that’s key, we decide on a course of action to set your dreams in motion. I’ve read many books that tell you how you should set goals and make resolutions. So have you. They typically don’t work so well for us. You don’t need someone telling you what you already know. ASP provides an extra boost. We light the afterburners to accelerate your success!
An attitude of achievement
You will learn how to develop an attitude of achievement. It does not matter what your education or experience is, we meet you where you are so you can learn how to overcome current or past obstacles. You will then learn about setting attainable goals, goals important to you and your dreams. When complete, you will have your own written individual plan. That you developed. To ensure you live your best life in the financial, professional, and personal areas. We then, together, compose timebound achievement plans to ensure your goals don’t end up like so many New Year’s resolutions. Taken together, we develop what we call a lifetime goal and achievement plan. As you follow it, your dreams, indeed your best life, will begin to fall into place. That’s the general process. Let me get into more specifics:
The first step is to sign up to receive these weekly, no-cost posts where, over time, you will learn everything you need to know to live your dreams. Sign up for our distribution list below. Each post will provide relevant and timely information about how to develop your own plan.
We have developed a series of short, online course segments available to complete at your leisure and is the fastest way to get started on achieving your dreams. This course method is perfect for commuters or people who desire to learn in short segments and will be suitable for your cell phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer.
For a more personal experience, we also offer a series of four instructor-led, interactive courses of about three hours each over four weeks to be held once a week via Zoom for us to develop your plan.
The most personal and third option is for in-person instructor-led courses held on-site at your facility or a facility of your choosing. This is absolutely the best method to master the material, offering personalized instruction and class interaction. If you have an organization such as a business, professional organization, church, or other group, we can work with you to set that up, customized to your group’s individual needs. If you are an employer, what better benefit to provide your valued employees?
In late 2024, the book “Achieve YOUR Dreams, a Complete Guide for You to Live YOUR Best Life” will be available for purchase.
Finally, if you desire, I am available for one-on-one consultations. We want you to have a realistic plan you can feel good about and that is customized to your situation. Reach out to me through the Contact page to get started.
What if you believe you are already on the path to achieving your dreams, of living your best life? We can help you confirm if you really are. We can give you the tools to have peace of mind knowing you are on track. Or we can help you make any needed adjustments as necessary. Why go through life just hoping your plan will work when you can have a high confidence level it will?
“OK, Dave, what’s the catch?” There is no catch. We want to help you make your dreams a reality. You say, “Why should I read these posts? What do you know about my dreams, anyway? Why should I listen to you? What’s in it for me?” Well, these are questions we will be answering as time goes on. As I said, receiving the posts is free and you can unsubscribe at any time. If you want to fully realize your dreams, and indeed live your best life, then I encourage you to stay with me.
Let’s summarize for today. Each post, this one included, will end with four sections: “What’s in it for me”, “Call to Action”, “Recommended Resources” and “What’s Up Next”.
What’s in it for me
“What’s in it for me” is an appeal to the basic human instinct of wanting what’s best for oneself. We all have the basic desire to do what benefits us the most and this section addresses that need.
Call to action
“Call to Action” are things you can and should do. Often this means reading, studying, or other tangible actions, that reinforce what you will learn with the weekly posts and classes. I’ve found that keeping my mind positive and learning from others has encouraged me, helped me stay focused, and helped me on my journey. Many of these “Call-to-Actions” typically refer to the “Recommended Resources” section and include suggestions to purchase, read, and act upon, books or other content, along with the lessons contained in them. I have a large personal library and have read, some many multiple times, each book or resource I recommend. I still find myself pulling these from the shelf and reading them today, some many years after I purchased them. So, it is my recommendation that you purchase these items for your own personal library so you can refer to them often and share them with your family and friends. I anticipate soon to be an Amazon affiliate. When I do, I may be modestly compensated when you use these links.
What’s up next
The final section “What’s Up Next” is designed to pique your interest in coming back next week to read the next post.
Oh, and one final thing. The information I am providing you is what I used to achieve my own dreams. I’ve been sharing this program with others since 2020, and with my children and family members long before that. I’ve taught it through a local school system adult education program. All the graduates of this program now have all the tools they need to achieve their best life. And they are doing it. Now, it’s time to broaden our reach. To you.
That’s all for this week. I look forward to getting back to you soon!
What’s in it for Me
Wouldn’t you like to have your own written plan to achieve the dreams you’ve always had and live your best life? The boxer Leon Spinks was once quoted as saying “Opportunity only knocks once. You never know if you will get another opportunity” Could ASP be that opportunity you’ve been waiting for?
Call to Action
Purchase and read the book The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. (Note 1).
Recommended Resources
“The Power of Positive Thinking” by Norman Vincent Peale (Note 1). Living our best life by setting and achieving our dreams is anchored in how we think. How we think determines how we act, how others perceive us, and quite frankly, how many opportunities come our way. Think about a few people you know. Are they successful? Are they happy? Are they a pleasure to be around? Most likely they are positive thinkers. I’m not talking about those who put on a show around others. You know who those people are. Conversely, think about those people you know who are not very happy, and who seem to have a cloud hanging over their heads. I would be willing to bet you they are not positive thinkers. I’ll bet you hear them complaining all the time as well. Not very fun to be around, huh? This book will give you all the tools to become a positive thinker yourself. It’s amazing how relevant a book written in 1951 is in 2024.
Up Next
Let’s set the stage! We’ll spend the next several posts talking about why someone like me would want to do this anyway. Then, we will be getting our minds in the right place and building the foundation of success. OK, you say, you are already a positive thinker. That’s great! But rereading books or viewing other material provides a few important benefits: First, it reinforces what you already know, and it provides affirmation that you are on the right path. Secondly, as you read these books and study material with this theme, you will see references to other sources of inspiration such as books and movies that you can read or watch so you can build your library of resources you can refer to over time. Thirdly, and maybe even most importantly you can share this knowledge with your family and friends. Doing so makes you an advocate for living your best life and can inspire others. What’s better than that?
Addendum
The 2024 World Happiness Report (https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2024/) is a report published in partnership with Gallup, The Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre at Oxford University, the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and WHR’s Editorial Board and measures general happiness by life evaluations (a ladder evaluation from 0-10 based upon a respondent's whole life) for 143 countries.
This is a fascinating report and I urge you to read it. If you live in the United States, the ranking should shock you. This tells me that collectively, we are not doing such a good job in attaining the happiness we all seek. Why is that? I’ll leave that to you to answer, here are the statistics from the WHR March 2024 edition.
For the period 2021-2024, people of all ages:
Number 1 (happiest)-Finland
Number 23-United States, down from 15 in 2023
Number 143 (least happy)-Afghanistan
For the young (30 and younger) in the US, the ranking was 62 and for the old (over 60) the ranking was 10.
Why are the young so glum and the older folks so much happier? Again, the report provides some of the details, but to me, the summary is what we are doing is not working. This is exactly why I put this program together, it’s my attempt to turn this around. I hope you will agree this is a good start.
Notes
Please note that as an Amazon Affiliate, I may earn a small commission on the sale of any of these recommended resources.
The Power of Positive Thinking by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale: https://amzn.to/3Y7tDTb