Last weekend I spoke for the Institute of Integrative Nutrition at Lincoln Center in New York City. As I prepared my presentation, I knew I wanted to offer something succinct that would speak to a thousand-plus students on their way to becoming holistic nutrition consultants, teachers, and coaches. What would apply to anyone wanting to be successful in business, make a contribution to the world, and have a great life at the same time?

I meditated on this for several days and came up with the following affirmation: “I am energetic, charismatic, and irrepressible.” I realized that this was precisely what I needed to share with the nutrition students, but it’s also something to share with my readers and coaching clients and use myself. As I thought about it, I wondered: could this be the Ultimate Success Affirmation? Maybe.

Here’s the breakdown: “I am energetic…” Energy is the basis of all we do. We need physical vitality to get things done, an energetic mind to devise creative approaches to problems, and an infusion of spiritual energy so we can be truly animated, genuinely positive, and fully alive. With sufficient energy, you can start a business while still working another job. You can have a family and get a Masters. You can go out in the evening to a lecture or the theater or a dance class instead of collapsing with the remote control. Without energy, dreams are flimsy and ethereal. With it, you can set about bringing them into being.

“I am charismatic…” If you want to attract a life partner, or clients, or an employer, or other people to support your cause, you have to develop charisma, personal magnetism. I wrote about ways to develop this in my last book, Fat, Broke & Lonely No More:

• Emanate enthusiasm
• Speak sincerely
• Be interested in just about everything
• Keep an upbeat attitude
• Become the person you want to be to attract the person (or people) you want to attract
• Cultivate clear boundaries
• Plug into a Power Source that won’t give out. Remember that charisma is power coming through a person. We don’t generate it: we channel it.

“I am irrepressible…” I love the very word “irrepressible” and its various synonyms—exuberant, high-spirited, buoyant. To be irrepressible means that nothing can keep you down for the count. How you far you go tomorrow doesn’t depend on what you may have lost yesterday. See yourself as someone who lives life in the real world, faces what has to be faced and feels what needs to be felt, but who refuses to let circumstances interfere with the joy and the destiny that brought you here in the first place.

I invite you to work with the Ultimate Success Affirmation (USA for short) every morning for the next 90 days. I suggest that you say 10 times to yourself: “I am energetic, charismatic, and irrepressible.” And that you say 10 times aloud: “I am energetic, charismatic, and irrepressible.” And that you write longhand in your journal or day planner 10 times: “I am energetic, charismatic, and irrepressible.” Put the affirmation on Post-It notes and stick them where you can see them. When someone asks who you are, say your name but think, “I am energetic, charismatic, and irrepressible.” My hunch is that if you do this faithfully, three months from now you will be living—and enjoying—a profoundly uplifted life.