Have you ever wondered what you’d say if you were called on to address a group of people? Could be any group: young kids, senior citizens, thirty-something males, mall-hopping teen girls, whoever.

Think about it. If you had to speak or create a piece of information on a specific topic to a group, what do you think would happen? I believe if you were asked to deliver your best information to this group (any group), something pretty cool would go down.

You would reach these folks on a level no one else could. What you said to those people might be somewhat similar to the things anyone else would say, but the way YOU, specifically, present your ideas and get your thoughts across would be refreshingly unique.

Why? Because it’s YOU. Because every person has their own perspective of “how things are” and “how things ideally should be,” and because no two people say the exact same thing the exact same way. Ever.

The basic ideas and principles can be the same, but the way each person puts them across will always be particular to you, the deliverer, with your own twists and tweaks colored by your own thoughts and beliefs about the topic you are discussing.

Today, I am addressing YOU through this article, delivering my best tips for how to succeed in life.

You may have heard these tips before. It’s highly likely you’ll hear them again, but it is extremely unlikely you’ll ever hear them the exact same way I will present them here (unless someone gets a little brave with the copy/paste function of their computer).

Ready? Here we go …

Be yourself.

Think your own thoughts, do your own thing, live your own life – you’re unique and special, just like everyone else. Some people take that as a joke and it’s funny the first time you hear it like that, but yes, it is actually true.

No one else can be you, and you can never be someone you aren’t. You’ll always be you. They’ll always be them.

When you try to be who or what you are not, the whole balance of life (for you) gets upset, and you’ll find yourself doing one of two things:

a) you’re either always falling out of character (because it’s hard to maintain a lie for long lengths of time)

or b) you sink so deep into the false character you’ve determined to be that you ultimately forget who you are (which leads to those mega-identity crises we hear about) and then struggle – possibly for years – to “find yourself” again.

Why would anyone even think to try and be who they are not? It’s the peer pressure thing, or “crowd mentality,” and yeah, I have a couple things to say about that, too.

Look, if everyone else is doing it, it’s definitely not unique or original, and definitely not in line with who you are as an individual.

Still, peer pressure and crowd mentality CAN benefit you – if you use it correctly. Here’s what I mean:

Learn to pay attention to what’s going on in your life and if you realize you’re following the crowd, just doing what everyone else is doing because it seems to be the thing to do, well, that’s your signal, your clue that you’re not being yourself.

Stop.

Think about what’s going on, and then do what YOU would do, based on your own thoughts and perspective of life.

There’s nothing special about being the same as everyone else. Sameness is predictable, boring, and ignorable. Is that how you want to be? Or would you prefer to be unique, spontaneous, and totally and completely watch-worthy?

YOU are a star. You are a celebrity. You are unique and special and always at your best – when you’re true to yourself by simply being exactly who you are, no matter what everyone else is doing.

On to tip number two …

Be honest.

People say, “Honesty is the best policy” for a reason. That reason is this:

Truth stands on its own. Truth holds up. Truth does not change. Truth is the same for everyone. You can BELIEVE in the truth and not be let down. You can expect things to hold true, always and under any and every circumstance, when they are honest.

Honest people do what they say they will do. Honest people behave with integrity. Honest people have standards which they uphold. Honest people are quick to rectify mistakes. Honest people are respectable, meaning respect-worthy.

If you want to be successful and maintain that success, you will practice honesty.

You will be honest in all of your endeavors because you’re not going to want to chance your foundation dropping out from under you and leaving you in a mess of failure that will be hard (if not nearly impossible) to dig your way out of.

Lies cause things to crumble, to become messy, to degenerate because they are false, they are untrue, they are “things that never really happened,” or “things that do not exist.”

And you will always get caught in a lie. Always. It may take a month, a year, five years, or even half your lifetime for the truth to come out, but it WILL come out. Because lies cannot stand on their own.

They’re not “real,” therefore they are not and never will be true – no matter how much you try to paint them as truth. When you lie, you’re painting without a canvas. Let me explain …

Imagine if you were an artist and you were painting a masterpiece, but you removed the canvas. What’s going to happen to the paint? Your magnum opus becomes a messy, floppy glob of gooey stuff that doesn’t even vaguely resemble the original composition.

The minute you introduce an untruth, your entire world becomes upset, unbalanced, and will eventually come crumbling down on top of you. Why?

Because from that instant on, every other moment in your life relative to the lie is based upon a falsehood, on something that doesn’t exist. Nothing can be supported by something that isn’t there.

Imagine if you were a carpenter and you built a house, but you removed the foundation. When you take away the supports, the house is gonna crumble, going to come completely apart eventually – because it becomes unwieldy – there’s nothing solid for it to sit on.

And this is what happens with your life, your relationships, when they are based on lies.

No one wants their life to fall apart at the seams, right? Therefore, honesty really is the best policy. If you want to be successful in life, be honest.

Next tip …

Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.

Ever dreamed of living in a perfect world? Well, if everyone in the world we currently live in understood and practiced that one simple directive above, that “perfect world” would be our exact existence. How is that possible?

It is possible because in life, you get what you give.

Need proof? Take a look at your life. Go ahead, give it a thorough once-over, check it twice, check it thrice. Is it everything you expected? Everything you dreamed of and hoped for? What you wanted? Are you living the life of your dreams?

How do your friends treat you? Your spouse? Your co-workers? Your acquaintances? Heck, how about your boss? Don’t have a boss? Well then, how’s your business doing? How’s your social life? How’s your relationship with your kids? Your family?

Not as good as you’d like? Hmmm. Don’t worry. It’s changeable. Really. Stick with me here. Here’s what I want you to do next:

Step back for a minute and look at YOU.

How good a friend are you to your friends? How do you treat your spouse? Your co-workers? Your acquaintances? How about your boss? How do you treat him or her? How do you treat your kids? How do you treat your family?

Your life is a mirror.

The way you treat others is reflected back – how you treat others is exactly how others will treat you. What you’re getting out of life is a direct reflection of what you’re putting in.

Here’s how it works:

Every day of your life, you give “the powers that be” a blueprint to follow for giving you what you want out of life. This blueprint is drawn from your own choices, your own actions.

YOU are the example. Life takes a look at YOU, at how you treat others, and goes, “Okay, this is what he wants. Give it to him.”

And that’s what you get. You are leading others, training them in how to treat you, and this training is based solely on how you treat them.

So, if YOU are designing the blueprint of your life through your own choices, actions, and behaviors, if you are providing the exact example others will follow when choosing how to treat you and you prefer to have a different experience of life, what can you do?

All you have to do is treat people differently, yes? How differently? Treat them the way you want them to treat you.

Be yourself, be honest, and be consistent in treating others the way you yourself desire to be treated, and you will be successful – in your various endeavors and in all of life.