You get more out of your relationships with others — more easily — by not approaching them directly. It’s because of something called the Law of Indirect Effort.
For example, if you want to impress someone, the direct way to do it is to point out your admirable qualities and accomplishments. But talking about yourself usually makes you feel a little foolish. (And sometimes embarrassed.)
The starting point of great success has always been the same. It is to dream big dreams. There is nothing more important than to begin by fantasizing about what you can become, have, and do.
But there are obstacles along the way to achieving those dreams. (more…)
When I was in my thirties, I was urged to run for political office. I put together a campaign committee of about 12 enthusiastic supporters. And I started to get carried away with the idea of making a difference in my state.
Then I called a politician I had worked with. I asked him if he had any advice. I still remember his words: “Are you financially independent?” (more…)
Highly creative people tend to have fluid, flexible, adaptive minds. You can see it in three statements they commonly make.
The first is simply “I was wrong.”
Non-creative people are so concerned with being right that all their mental energy is consumed by stonewalling, bluffing, blaming, and denying. If you’re wrong, admit it… and get on to the solution or the next step.
The second is “I made a mistake.”
Non-creative people think it is a sign of weakness to admit to having made a mistake. On the contrary, it is a sign of mental maturity, personal strength, and character. (Remember, everybody makes mistakes every single day.)
The third statement is “I changed my mind.”
It is amazing how many uncomfortable situations non-creative people get into and stay in because they are unwilling or afraid to admit that they’ve changed their minds.
Here are two ways you can break away from those old, limiting ideas and become a more creative thinker.
1. Be willing to admit that you are not perfect, you make mistakes, you are wrong. This is a mark of intelligence and courage.
2. When you get new information, be willing to change your mind. Most of what you know about your business today will change completely in the coming years, so be the first to recognize it.
[Ed. Note: Would you be surprised to learn that you can have all the success and happiness you dream of... just by changing the way you think? With Brian Tracy's powerful one-hour seminar CD, Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life, you'll be able to use your thoughts to turn your dreams into reality!
Jumpstart your goal-achieving efforts with Bob Cox, a success mentor who has helped thousands achieve their life's ambition. Check out his Total Success Achievement program here.]
When I began searching for the secrets of success many years ago, I discovered something interesting: Success leaves tracks.
So if you want to be a big success, look for those tracks. Find out what successful people in your field are doing, and do the same things. You will shorten your learning curve and accelerate your results.
That’s what I did.
When I studied the interviews, speeches, biographies, and autobiographies of successful men and women, I found that they all had something in common. They were all described as being “extremely well-organized.” They used their time very, very well. They were highly productive and they got vastly more done than the average person in the same period of time.
I followed their paths and it made me who I am today.
Here are two things you can start doing immediately to put this idea into action:
First, develop a plan to learn from the actions of the experts in your field. This can save you years of hard work.
Then, study everything you’ve learned and choose one of those things – the most important one – to implement. Decide how to do it. Then do it.
[Ed. Note: With Brian Tracy’s Flight Plan, you can discover how to achieve more, faster than you ever dreamed possible. You also receive 2 BONUS CDS!
When you are working progressively, step-by-step, toward something that is important to you, you generate within yourself a continuous feeling of success and achievement.
And it begins with determining what it is you believe in and stand for – your values.
Successful people are successful because they are very clear about their values. Unsuccessful people are fuzzy or unsure. Complete failures have no real values at all.
Clarifying your values is the beginning exercise in building self-confidence, self-esteem, and character. When you take the time to think through your fundamental values, and then commit to living your life consistent with them, you feel a surge of mental strength and well-being. You feel more capable. You feel more centered in the universe and more competent to accomplish the goals you set for yourself.
Here are two things you can do immediately to put this idea into action.
1. Decide for yourself what makes you truly happy, and organize your life around it.
2. Identify your values – what it is you stand for and believe in. Commit to living in a way that’s consistent with these innermost convictions… and you’ll never make another mistake.
[Ed. Note: You need a flight plan to succeed. But having the plan isn't enough. Like a pilot, you must make course corrections along the way in order to arrive at your destination. With Brian Tracy's Flight Plan, you can discover a how to achieve more, faster than you ever dreamed possible. You also receive 2 BONUS CDS. Learn more here.]
Top salespeople ask good questions and listen carefully to the answers. One of the most important listening skills they develop is to simply pause before replying. When the prospect finishes talking, rather than jumping in with the first thing they can think of, they take three to five seconds to quietly wait.
Pausing before you speak has three specific benefits.
• You avoid the risk of interrupting the prospect if he has just stopped to gather his thoughts.
• Your silence tells the prospect that you are giving careful consideration to what he has just said. This is a compliment, and makes him feel valuable.
• Pausing before replying means that you will actually hear and understand the prospect better because you’ve given his words a little time to soak into your mind. You will be more alert to how his words can connect with other things you know about him in relation to your product or service.
When you pause, not only do you become a more thoughtful person, you convey this to the customer. By extension, you become a more valuable person to do business with.
[Ed. Note: In his audio program, Communicate With Power , Brian Tracy, master salesman and business coach, will show you how to influence people and get what you want by using only words.
And what better way to hone your communication and sales techniques than by setting up your own Internet business? The Internet Money Club Independent Learner Edition gives you the complete, start-from-scratch guide to finding financial independence online. Get all the details now]
A major reason for procrastinating on important tasks is that they appear to be so formidable when you approach them.
One way to cut a big task down to size is with the “salami slice” technique. With this method, you lay out the task in detail, and then resolve to do just one piece of the job for the time being – like eating a roll of salami, one slice at a time.
Psychologically, you will find it easier to start on a single, small piece of a large project than to start on the whole job. And once you have completed that small piece, you will feel like doing just one more “slice.” Before you know it, the entire job will be done.
[Ed. Note: Time is valuable, and learning how to use it to your advantage is a vital skill that every top achiever should master. Learn how to zero in on the critical tasks, organize each day, get more done faster, and get the right things done with Brian Tracy's book, Eat That Frog. .
For dozens of strategies that can help you accomplish your dreams faster, sign up for ETR's Total Success Achievement Program. Success mentor Bob Cox will provide you with all the tools you need to succeed in 2009 and beyond.]
If the thought of eating cloned meat doesn’t appeal to you, make sure you’re buying only pasture-raised meats.
In January of this year, the USDA officially defined “naturally raised” livestock as being raised:
Protect yourself by looking for “pasture-raised” and “grass-fed” and “organic.” Visit the EatWild website for a directory of companies you can trust (e.g., U.S. Wellness Meats).
[Ed. Note: Eating right goes a long way toward helping you stay healthy and live longer. Pick up a copy of nutrition expert Kelley Herring's collection of recipes for dozens of delicious and guilt-free desserts today. .
For more advice on which foods you should - and shouldn't - be eating to stay in top health, sign up for ETR's free natural health newsletter. ]
The law of forced efficiency says: “There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing.”
The fact is that the average person today is working at 110-130 percent of capacity. And the jobs and responsibilities just keep piling up. One recent study concluded that the average executive has a backlog of 300-400 hours of reading and projects at home and at the office.
What this means is that you will never be caught up. Get that out of your mind. All you can hope for is to keep on top of your most important responsibilities. The others will just have to wait.
The key question you can ask is: “What is the most valuable use of my time, right now?”
Every hour of every day, there is an answer to this question. Your job is to ask yourself that question, over and over again – and to make sure you’re always spending your time working on whatever is most important at that particular moment.
The more accurate your answers to this question, the easier it will be for you to set clear priorities and overcome procrastination.
[Ed. Note: In his book, Eat That Frog!, personal effectiveness expert Brian Tracy shows you how to zero in on the critical tasks and organize each day - you'll not only get more done faster, but you'll also get the right things done! Get your copy and learn how to stop procrastinating right now.]
Knowing the right people and being known by them can open doors for you that can save you years of hard work. The quality and quantity of your contacts and your relationships will have more to do with your success than perhaps any other factor.
Here are three things you can do to start making powerful and lasting connections:
1. Make a list of the 25 people you feel it would be most useful for you to get to know. Develop a strategy to meet every one of them over the next 12 months.
2. Network at every opportunity. Join business and trade associations. Attend meetings. Volunteer to serve on a key committee.
3. Get involved in community service organizations. The best people in every community, the people you should know and who should know you, are usually involved in public service in some way. Start with the United Way in your own city, or get involved in any cause you care about or are interested in.
Follow these steps and jobs, referrals, and deals will flow to you.
[Ed. Note: Increasing your contacts to expand your influence and build your career is just a small taste of the business and personal development skills taught by Brian Tracy (www.briantracy.com). Learn how to get the most out of your networking circle here.
Going online is another sure way to build your business and profits. Learn how ETR can help you do just that here. ]
Everyone makes mistakes – and the busier you are, the more mistakes you will make. The only question is “How well and how effectively do you deal with the inevitable ups and downs of life?”
You’ve got to learn how to benefit from your mistakes and how to remain positive in the face of adversity. To get started, here are five ideas to consider:
• Let the Light Shine In
This is achieved through the simple exercise of self-disclosure. To truly understand yourself and to stop being troubled by things that may have happened in your past, you must be able to open up to at least one person. You have to be able to get those things off your chest. You must rid yourself of those thoughts and feelings by revealing them to someone who won’t make you feel guilty or ashamed of what has happened.
• Expect a Lot Out of Life
There are two ways to look at the world: the benevolent way and the malevolent way. People with a malevolent or negative worldview take a victim stance, seeing life as a continuous succession of problems and a process of unfairness and oppression. They don’t expect a lot and they don’t get much. When things go wrong, they shrug their shoulders and passively accept that this is the way life is and there isn’t anything they can do to make it better.
On the other hand, people with a benevolent or positive worldview see the world around them as filled with opportunities and possibilities. They believe that everything happens as part of a great process designed to make them successful and happy. They approach their lives, their work, and their relationships with optimism, cheerfulness, and a general attitude of positive expectations. They expect a lot, and they are seldom disappointed.
• Flex Your Mental Muscles
When you develop the skill of learning from your mistakes, you become the kind of person who welcomes obstacles and setbacks as opportunities to flex your mental muscles and move ahead. You look at problems as rungs on the ladder of success that you grab onto as you pull your way higher.
One of the most common ways of dealing with a mistake is to fail to accept it when it occurs. This is invariably fatal to high achievement.
• Cut Your Losses
Statistically speaking, 70 percent of all the decisions we make will be wrong. That’s an average. This means that some people will fail more than 70 percent of the time, and some will fail less.
It is hard to believe that most of the decisions we make could turn out to be wrong in some way. If that is the case, how can our society continue to function at all? But the fact is that our society, our families, our companies, and our relationships continue to survive and thrive because intelligent people tend to cut their losses and minimize their mistakes.
It is only when people refuse to accept that they have made a bad choice or decision – and prolong the consequences by sticking to it – that a mistake becomes extremely expensive and hurtful.
• Learn From Your Mistakes
Learning from your mistakes – using them to better yourself and improve the quality of your thinking – is an essential skill that enables you to develop the resilience to be a master of change rather than a victim of change. The person who recognizes that he has made a mistake and changes direction the fastest is the one who will win in an age of increasing information, technology, and competition.
By remaining fast on your feet, you will be able to out-play and out-position your competition. You will become a creator of circumstances rather than a creature of circumstances.
Here are three steps you can take immediately to put the above ideas into action.
1. Imagine that your biggest problem or challenge in life has been sent to you at this moment to help you, to teach you something valuable. What could it be?
2. Be willing to cut your losses and walk away if you have made a mistake or a bad choice. Accept that you are not perfect, that you can’t be right all the time… and then get on with your life.
3. Learn from every mistake you make. Write down every lesson it contains. Use your mistakes in the present as stepping stones to great success in the future.
[Ed. Note: Brian Tracy is the world's most listened to audio author on personal and business success and one of America's leading authorities on the development of human potential and personal effectiveness. With Brian's Flight Plan, you can discover how to achieve more, faster than you ever dreamed possible. You also receive 2 BONUS CDS. Learn more here.
Life's little irritations can stand in your way to success. But there are clever ways to deal with most of them. Find out how here.]
Why do some people retire rich and most people retire poor? This question has fascinated philosophers, mystics, and teachers throughout the ages. There have been so many men and women – hundreds or thousands, maybe even millions – who started with nothing and became financially independent that people are naturally curious to know why it happened and if there are common rules or principles that others can apply to become wealthy as well.
The Parable of the Talents is one of the stories told by Jesus to illustrate a moral lesson. The message in this case (from the Gospel of Matthew): “To him that hath, shall more be given, and he shall have abundance. But from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away.”
What does it mean?
In the modern world, we say it this way: “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” The fact is that people who accumulate money tend to accumulate more and more. People who don’t accumulate money seem to lose even that little bit that they have.
Why should this happen?
The great success principle, the single idea that explains human destiny is simple: “You become what you think about most of the time.”
Control Your Thoughts
Whatever you dwell upon grows in your reality. You create your entire world by the things you choose to think about and how you choose to think about them.
It just so happens that wealthy, successful people fill their minds – most of the time – with thoughts, words, pictures, and images of wealth, affluence, success, productivity, and solutions to problems in the marketplace. These thoughts trigger the reticular activating cortex, the part of the brain that makes you more alert and sensitive to things that you have decided are important to you.
For example, if you decide to invest in a mutual fund, you will start to see news and information about mutual funds everywhere. Mentions in newspapers and magazines will jump out at you. These things have always been there, but now you have sensitized your brain to pick them up and draw them to your attention with far greater frequency and vividness. This is the function and power of your reticular cortex.
Think Like Wealthy People Think
Wealthy people, from an early age, think about how much they have, how much they want, and all the different things they can do to acquire and earn the money and things they desire.
On the other hand, what do poor people think about most of the time? Unfortunately, they fill their minds with thoughts of scarcity, lack, poverty, being unable to afford things. They are always thinking and talking about how little money they have, how much things cost, and how they wish they could be better off financially. What they think about most of the time is how little money they have.
Find Out How Rich People Think
Here’s a rule for you. If you want to become successful, find out what failures do and don’t do it. If you want to be wealthy, find out what poor people think about, and avoid thinking that way. Instead, find out how wealthy people think. Find out what they read. Find out how they spend their time. Study their lives, read their stories and autobiographies, and listen to their words when they are interviewed and on tape. The more you find out about what financially successful people think and talk about most of the time – and do the same things – the more rapidly you will enjoy the same rewards that they do.
Here are two things you can do to put The Parable of the Talents into action:
First, make a decision that, starting today, you will think and talk only about the financial success you desire. At the same time, you will refuse to talk about or dwell upon your financial problems.
Second, instead of saying “I can’t afford it,” you will ask the question “How can I afford it?” When you think of something that you want or need that you don’t have the money for at the time, the only question to ask is “How?” How can you get it? What can you do to achieve it? What are your options? How can you get from where you are to where you want to be?
It will change your life.
[Ed. Note: Today, make the decision that you'll end "poverty thinking." Instead, find out what the wealthy do and copy it. One "Mentor to Billionaires" can give you dozens of simple strategies that his billionaire colleagues used to transform themselves into master moneymakers. Learn more here.
Maybe you want to set goals for yourself - but don't know where to start. Now, success expert Brian Tracy will show you a proven way to set and accomplish even your toughest goals. Just follow the step-by-step instructions in his easy-to-use Maximum Achievement Goal Planner workbook. Start on the path to achieving lifelong success and abundance today.]
Some things in life are optional, and some things in life are mandatory. Taking your next vacation to the Caribbean is optional. Building a personal library and becoming an avid reader is mandatory. It is no longer something you can choose to do. It is absolutely essential and indispensable for your success.
Some years ago, a young man came to me and asked for advice. Though he had managed to graduate from high school, he could barely read. Meanwhile, he was working at a dead-end job at minimum wage, and he had been there for two years. He was living in a small apartment on a limited budget. His friends from high school were in pretty much the same predicament. They all were working at low-level, low-skill jobs with no future.
He said he wanted to be successful at something that didn’t require reading. I told him that this was not a matter of choice. I told him that he had to learn to read, and read well. The only jobs that wouldn’t require him to read were the kinds of jobs he and his friends were already doing. And even those jobs soon would be done by younger, more eager people with better educations.
Much to his credit, he thought about what I said, and finally accepted the fact that he had to become a good reader. He began taking community-college courses in remedial reading. Eventually, he applied for entrance to a technical institute, and he got in by the skin of his teeth. Because of his poor high-school education, it took him almost three years to complete a two-year program in biomedical engineering. He stuck in there and worked hard, and finally got the degree.
A small company hired him as a sales representative, to call on hospitals and clinics in a rural territory. It wasn’t much, but he took it and ran with it. He continued to read, studying sales and communications on his own. He started that sales job at $22,000 per year, and within two years he was up to $30,000. In his third year, he was hired away by a rival company and paid $40,000 per year. Two years later, an international company heard about his success in the marketplace and hired him at more than $50,000 per year, with a company car, an expense account, and substantial benefits.
In seven years, he went from being a semiliterate, minimum-wage worker to a highly paid biomedical technical representative. And he was back in the big city with a townhouse, a new car, a wife, children, and a great life. The interesting thing is that as he went around trying to renew his old friendships, he found that most of the people he had graduated with were still working at dead-end jobs.
Seven years seems like a long time, but it passes in a flash when you are busy doing something you enjoy and getting continually better at it.
Many people think it’s up to their company to educate them if they need additional training. Well, if your company provides training, you should take advantage of every minute of it. But if it doesn’t, and most companies don’t, you are still solely responsible for maintaining and increasing your value through continuous reading. There is no other way.
Let me share with you some ideas that helped me go from high-school dropout and dishwasher, working in the kitchen of a small hotel, to chief operating officer of a $265 million company. These practices have been shared by most of the successful men and women in America. Their cumulative effect on the quality of your life can be amazing.
1. If you are not a good reader, make the decision, right now, that you are going to go any distance, pay any price, overcome any obstacle, and spend whatever amount of money it takes to become an excellent reader.
If you do not know how to read particularly well, stop everything else that you are doing outside of your work and dedicate yourself to reading. Spend every spare minute reading as if your future depends on it. Because it does.
It may take a week, a month, or a year to become a better reader. It may take even longer. But that doesn’t matter. Becoming an excellent reader will kick open doors of opportunity that you cannot now imagine.
2. If you are already a good reader, or when you become a good reader, learn to speed-read.
The Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics program is probably the best that has ever been developed. Also, many communities throughout the country offer speed-reading classes. Speed-reading is like touch-typing. In typing, you can use the hunt-and-peck method all your life, or you can learn how to do it right and increase your speed to 50 or 60 words per minute. In reading, you can take your speed from 50 or 60 words per minute up to 300, 400, 500, or even 1,000 words per minute, with no loss of comprehension. Speed-reading is absolutely essential to the success of really ambitious men and women today.
3. Build a personal library.
Although public libraries are extremely helpful for research, you should buy your own books.
Which books should you buy? Use the Law of Relative Importance to make your decisions. Buy the books that are most important to your life at the moment. The key word here is “relevant.” Adults learn best when what they are studying is extremely relevant to their needs, their work, their life, and their present situation. If you read material that is not relevant to you, you will find it difficult. You will not be drawn to the material, and you will forget most of it as you go along. But when you read material that is both relevant and applicable to your work, your mind sparkles with all kinds of ideas on how you can use this new information to be more effective. The prospect of learning new methods and techniques that you know will improve your life is both exciting and highly motivating.
It’s also a good idea to ask the most successful people in your field what books they would recommend. Then go straight to the bookstore and buy them.
Every professional should have a library in his field – and professionalism is a state of mind. If you are in sales, for example, you should have a library of sales books. You should be reading at least one hour per day in sales, one book per week, 50 books per year. You should be a consistent, persistent student of your craft. You should know more about the field of selling than anybody else within 500 miles.
You should set a goal to become so knowledgeable about sales that you would be able to give advanced classes in your profession within a few years. With this goal as your guiding star, you will find yourself learning and remembering far more than you would if you were just browsing through the material.
Should you buy hardcover books or softcover books? I recommend that you purchase any book, hardcover or softcover, that can help you. Some books cost $20 to $30. The average person complains that he can’t afford such a book. The superior person recognizes that the information contained in that book can save him a year or two of hard work.
Remember, it may have taken the author of that book 10 to 20 years to learn his subject. It may have taken him two to three years to write the book, and one or two years to get it published. By paying a few dollars for that book, you probably are getting the results of 20 or 25 years of effort by one of the smartest people in your field.
In one 22-year study of self-made millionaires, researchers found that a common characteristic of those special men and women who went from rags to riches was that they were absolutely fascinated by their work. They didn’t think so much about making a lot of money. They were more concerned about becoming better and better at what they did. Their work absorbed them completely.
In almost no time at all, because of their commitment to reading and self-development, they were paid more and more. And once they reached a high level of income, their fascination with their work still continued. Instead of drawing extra money from their businesses and spending it frivolously, they reinvested it in themselves and in their careers. As a result, they became more and more proficient and wealthier and wealthier.
Then, one day, they opened their eyes, looked around, and found that they were worth more than $1 million. And the continuous learning, the nonstop reading, was the key reason.
[Ed. Note: Building a personal library - and studying its contents - can bring you very close to success. The final step is to take action and turn your dreams into reality. Want to know how to accomplish more in a month than most people accomplish in a year? Success expert Brian Tracy's audio program, The Miracle of Self-Discipline, will show you how! Training yourself to complete important tasks - even when you don't want to - is a vital skill that every Top Achiever should master. Get all the details here.
Reading books, as Brian said, is a quick and easy way to absorb decades of the effort and experience of smart people in your field. Now, you can learn 60+ years of marketing and business-building lessons from two marketing superstars. Just pick up a copy of Michael Masterson and MaryEllen Tribby's brand-new book, Changing the Channel: 12 Easy Ways to Make Millions for Your Business.]
The starting point of great success and achievement has always been the same: Dream big dreams. There is nothing more important, and nothing that works faster, than to cast off your own limitations and begin fantasizing about what you can become, have, and do.
As a wise man once said, “You must dream big dreams, for only big dreams have the power to move the minds of men.” When you begin to dream big dreams, your levels of self-esteem and self-confidence go up immediately. You feel more powerful about yourself and your ability to deal with what happens to you. The reason so many people accomplish so little is because they never allow themselves to lean back and imagine the kind of life that is possible for them.
A principle that you can use to dream big dreams and live without limits is contained in what physicist Elihu Goldratt calls the “Theory of Constraints.” This is one of the greatest breakthroughs in modern thinking. What Goldratt found is that in every process, in accomplishing any goal, there is a bottleneck or choke cord that serves as a constraint. This constraint then sets the speed at which you achieve the goal. But if you concentrate all of your creative energies and attention on alleviating the constraint, you can speed up the process faster than by doing any other single thing.
Let me give you an example. Let us say that you want to double your income. What is the critical constraint or the limiting factor that holds you back? Well, you know that your income is a direct reward for the quality and quantity of the services you render to your world. Whatever field you are in, if you want to double your income, you simply have to double the quality and quantity of what you do for that income. Or you have to change activities and occupations so that what you are doing is worth twice as much. But you must always ask yourself, “What is the critical constraint that holds me back or sets the speed on how fast I double my income?”
So what is holding you back? Is it your level of education or skill? Is it your current occupation or job? Is it your current environment or level of health? Is it the situations that you are in today? What is setting the speed for you to achieve your goal?
Remember, whatever you have learned, you can unlearn. Whatever situation you have gotten yourself into, you can probably get yourself out of. If your real goal is to dream big dreams and to live without limits, you can set this as your standard and compare everything you do against it.
The three keys to living without limits have always been the same. They are clarity, competence, and concentration.
• Clarity means that you are absolutely clear about who you are, what you want, and where you’re going.
You write down your goals and you make plans to accomplish them. You set very careful priorities and you do something every day to move yourself toward your goals. And the more progress you make toward accomplishing things that are important to you, the greater self-confidence and self-belief you have, and the more convinced you become that there are no limits on what you can achieve.
• Competence means that you begin to become very, very good in the key areas of your chosen field.
You apply the 80/20 rule to everything you do, and you focus on becoming outstanding in the 20 percent of tasks that contribute to 80 percent of your results. You dedicate yourself to continuous learning. You never stop growing. You realize that excellence is a moving target. And you commit yourself to doing something every day that enables you to become better and better at doing the most important things in your field.
• Concentration is having the self-discipline to force yourself to concentrate single-mindedly on one thing, the most important thing, and stay with it until it’s complete.
The two key words for success have always been focus and concentration. Focus is knowing exactly what you want to be, have, and do. Concentration is persevering, without diversion or distraction, in a straight line toward accomplishing the things that can make a real difference in your life.
When you allow yourself to begin to dream big dreams, creatively abandon the activities that are taking up too much of your time, and focus your inward energies on alleviating your main constraints, you start to feel an incredible sense of power and confidence. As you focus on doing what you love to do and becoming excellent in those few areas that can make a real difference in your life, you begin to think in terms of possibilities rather than impossibilities, and you move ever closer toward the realization of your full potential.
[Ed. Note: Clarity, competence, and concentration will bring you very close to success. The final step is to take action and turn your dreams into reality. Brian Tracy - one of the world's leading authorities on the development of human potential and personal effectiveness - can help you discover a simple and easy-to-learn way to get everything you want out of life. Get all the details of his Ultimate Goal Achieving Package here.
Owning a multimillion-dollar business is no longer just an idle dream. You can get 12 specific strategies that will help you turn your online business into an Internet powerhouse at ETR's 2008 Info-Marketing Bootcamp. In fact, you could be making $1.2 million or more in 2009...]
The very worst use of time is to stay at a job for months and years for which you are completely unsuited.
There are a great number of people who spend their whole lives doing something they don’t enjoy during the week, always looking forward to the weekends. They refer to Monday as “Blue Monday” and to Wednesday as “Hump Day.” At the end of the week, they say “Thank God It’s Friday!”
These are men and women with very little in the way of a future. They look upon their jobs as a form of drudgery, a penance they have to pay in order to enjoy their free time. And because of this attitude, they will seldom advance or be promoted.
They will stay pretty much where they are, moving from job to job, and always wondering why other people seem to be living the good life while they feel like they are living a life of quiet desperation.
At my seminars, I am frequently asked by people what they can do to be more successful. In almost every case, they are working in jobs they don’t like, for bosses they don’t particularly respect, producing or selling products or services for customers they don’t care about. And many of them think that if they just hang in there long enough, the clouds will part and everything will get better for them.
But the fact is that you are where you are and what you are because that’s what you have chosen. You can do amazing things with your life, but nobody else can change your situation for you. It’s entirely up to you.
The economic function of your company is to hire people at the very lowest cost so that they can serve customers at the very lowest cost in a competitive market. For this reason, no one has any obligation to pay you any more than you are getting. If possible, they would like to pay you less.
One thing I tell people over and over again is that they must become very good at doing what they are doing if they want to move up in their company. And if they don’t have the inner desire to be very good at their job, it means they are probably in the wrong one.
Excellence is like a ladder, and excellent performance at your current job is like the rungs on the ladder. In order for you to progress, you must become extremely good at what you are doing right now. Once you have mastered your current job, you will automatically move up to more difficult, more interesting, and higher-paid jobs.
Too many people do their jobs in an average or mediocre fashion, with the idea that, when the right job comes along, then they will really do a good job. But for some reason, the right job never comes along. They are always passed over for promotions and advancement. They are always the last ones hired and the first ones laid off.
So be perfectly honest with yourself. Look deep inside and decide what it is you would like to do if you only had six months left to live. What would you choose to do if you won a million dollars in the lottery tomorrow? What sort of work would you do if you were absolutely guaranteed of success in any one field? If you had no limits on your abilities and opportunities – no debts, no problems, no commitments – what would be your ideal job or career?
Research shows that the things people liked to do best between the ages of 7 and 14 were a very good indicator of what they would be most successful at as adults.
A man at one of my seminars told me that when he was between the ages of 7 and 14 he loved to build model airplanes. He built more and more complicated planes, and then built them with engines and flew them in contests.
Today, he is 35 years old. He has a degree in aeronautical engineering. He designs small aircraft. In addition, he owns an aircraft maintenance company and an air charter firm. He is a multi-millionaire, and he feels like he has never worked a day in his life. He has always done what he loved to do and most enjoyed from the time he was a little boy.
If you’re not sure about your true calling, ask the people closest to you. Ask them, “What do you think I would be the very best at doing with my life?” It is amazing how people around you – including your spouse, your best friends, and your parents – can see clearly what you should be doing when often you cannot see it yourself.
Project yourself forward five years, and imagine that your entire life is perfect in every respect. Imagine that you are doing exactly the right job for you, in exactly the right place, with exactly the right people, and earning exactly the amount you want to earn.
What would that look like? Where would you be, and what would you be doing? Who would you be with, and how would you have changed?
When you have that picture in your head, think about the steps you would have to take to get from where you are today to where you want to be in five years. What skills would you have to develop? What information would you have to acquire? What obstacles would you have to overcome?
Success comes from being excellent at what you do. The market pays excellent rewards only for excellent performance. It pays average rewards for average performance, and below-average rewards for below-average performance.
But excellence is a journey, not a destination. You never quite get there. You can never relax. The market is always changing, so what constitutes excellence today will be different tomorrow and very different next year and every year thereafter.
All really successful and happy people know in their hearts that they are very good at what they do. And if you are doing what you really love and enjoy, if you are following your true calling, you will know it too.
Here’s an exercise for you. Imagine that it’s possible for you to earn 10 times your current annual wage.
The first reaction of most people to that exercise is to smile briefly and then begin thinking about why it isn’t possible. But, as Mark Twain once wrote, there are a thousand excuses for every failure but never a good reason.
The main preoccupation of the average American seems to be money, or the lack thereof. The tragedy in this is that the average person has the inherent potential to earn far more than he is earning currently.
Is the manager earning $250,000 per year 10 times smarter than the manager earning $25,000? 10 times more experienced? Does he work 10 times harder? Of course not.
Here are two things you can do to start increasing your income:
1. Identify the highest earning people in your field. Find out what it is that they are doing differently from others who aren’t doing as well. Copy them every day.
2. Set a goal to double your income over the next two or three years, and then figure out what you have to do to achieve it.
Get started!
[Ed. Note: Doubling your income is a reachable goal. So is the goal of becoming a millionaire. Especially if you follow men and women who have reached seven-figure net worths in seven years or less. Learn how they did it - and how you can do the same - right here.
If you want to find your focal point and learn to maximize your income and minimize your effort, check out Brian Tracy's 6-CD Power of Clarity program.]
Your success in life will be largely determined by your ability to find your true calling, the right work for you to do, and then putting your whole heart into doing it very well.
The happiest people are those who have carefully thought through who they are, what they want, where they are going, and then decided exactly what they need to do to get to their goal. Asking yourself five targeted questions can help you home in on whatever path is right for you.
#1: What do I do easily and well?
When you are seeking your true calling, you must look at the activities that have always been easy for you but which have been difficult for others. Often, you will get comments and compliments on how well you do a particular task. You will be surprised when you hear those remarks, because you never even thought about it that much. It just seemed natural for you from the very beginning.
My daughter is a natural and spontaneous little actress. From the time she was three or four years old, she has memorized lines and acted in every school play and function that has ever come up. In fact, by the time she was six, she was memorizing every line in the school play, not only her own but the lines of every other child. When the other children forgot their lines, Christina would whisper them and keep the play on track.
When Christina was 11 years old, she appeared at a city council meeting and gave a speech in favor of a permit allowing her school to expand. She stood up at the meeting, on a chair, in front of 150 adults, and gave an impassioned little talk. As a result, the permit was granted – and Christina was on the front page of two newspapers the following day.
#2: What are the things that I have done in life that have been most responsible for my success?
In looking back over your work and your activities, what are the things you have done that have given you the greatest rewards and satisfaction? If you work for a company, what are the activities you have engaged in that have achieved the very best results for yourself and your company? Your previous success experiences are signposts pointing to the sort of things that you should be doing more and more of if you want to deploy yourself more fully for greater happiness and satisfaction in life.
#3: What would I do differently, knowing what I know now?
Is there anything that you are currently doing that you wouldn’t start up again if you had to do it over? Is there any relationship that you are in that you wouldn’t get into if you could make the choice today? Is there any job or part of any job that you are doing that you would not embark upon, knowing what you now know, if you had to do it over?
As many as 95 percent of people working today are under-employed, not working to their full capacity for themselves and their companies. Only 5 percent, when interviewed, will say that they are working fully extended at their current job. Only 5 percent feel that their entire potential is being consumed and that they are working on the outer edge of their abilities. These people also tend to be the happiest, the highest paid, and the most fulfilled in any organization or enterprise.
#4: What work would I choose to do if I won a million dollars, cash, in the lottery tomorrow?
This is a question I sometimes ask my seminar audiences. When you hear this question, your gut reaction is a good indicator of where you are today and possibly where you should be going in the future. Most people, when they think of winning a million dollars, think of quitting their current job and doing something else. There is nothing wrong with that. Since most people have backed into their current jobs, taking them because they just happened to be there at the time a job was needed, most people probably should be doing something else.
Napoleon Hill once said the key to success in America is to find out what you really enjoy doing, and then find a way to make a good living at it. What do you most love to do?
Successful people don’t feel like they work at all. They are doing what they love to do, and they are so busy doing it that their work becomes their play. Their work life and their personal life blends together like a hand fitting neatly into a glove. There is no separation. They are totally committed individuals who are accomplishing far more in a shorter period of time than the average person who is merely going through the motions.
#5: If I were absolutely guaranteed tremendous success in any job I chose, what field would I go into?
One of the major reasons people hold themselves back from doing what they are truly meant to do is that they are afraid they will fail in some way. And being afraid that you will fail is the surest guarantor that you will fail.
But what if you are absolutely guaranteed success in any field you choose? What would it be? What would you want to do if you had unlimited time, unlimited resources, and guaranteed success?
The answer to that question should cause you to tingle a little bit. It should make your stomach flutter. It should send a thrill of excitement and anticipation through you that tells you this is the job you should be doing.
Asking and answering the above five questions can change your life.
You have within you talents and abilities so vast that you could never use them all if you lived to be a thousand. You have natural skills and talents that can enable you to overcome any obstacle and achieve any goal you could ever set for yourself. There are no limits on what you can be, have, or do if you find your true calling.
When you become one of the few people who are doing what they love to do, who are totally absorbed in doing something they really care about, you will make more progress in a couple of years than the average wage slave makes in five or 10 years. You will come to the attention of people who can help you and open doors for you. You will be happy and fulfilled in both your work and your personal relationships. You will have more energy, enthusiasm, and creativity. You will unlock your true potential, and your future will become unlimited.
[Ed. Note: Finding your true calling can help you find happiness, success, and even wealth. Put Brian's strategies to work, and you could have it all. And if you want to find your focal point and learn to maximize your income and minimize your effort, check out Brian's 6-CD Power of Clarity program.]
In 1970, sociologist Dr. Edward Banfield of Harvard University wrote a book entitled The Unheavenly City. He described one of the most profound studies on success and priority-setting ever conducted.
Banfield’s goal was to find out how and why some people become financially independent during the course of their working lifetimes. He started off convinced that the answer to this question would be found in such things as family background, education, intelligence, influential contacts, or some other concrete factor. What he finally discovered was that the major reason for success in life is a particular attitude of mind.
Banfield called this attitude "long time perspective." He said that people who were the most successful in life and the most likely to move up economically were those who took the future into consideration with every decision they made in the present. He found that the longer the period of time a person took into consideration, the more likely it was that he would achieve greatly during his career.
Doctors, for example, invest many years of hard work and study to finally earn the right to practice medicine. After university courses, internship, residency, and practical training, they may be more than 30 years old before they are capable of earning a good living. But from that point onward, they are among the most respected and most successful professionals in the United States. They had long time perspectives.
If you take additional courses in the evening to upgrade your skills and make yourself more valuable to your employer, you’re acting with a long time perspective. Because it can have a long-term effect on your career and your life.
The key to setting priorities is to have a long time perspective – and that usually requires sacrificing present enjoyment for future enjoyment. It requires giving up a short-term pleasure in the present in order to enjoy a far greater and more substantial pleasure in the future. And it begins with deciding what you want most in life and then organizing your time and activities so you can achieve those objectives.
With your larger, long-term priorities in order, you can much more easily decide upon your short-term priorities.
Setting short-term priorities begins with a pad of paper and a pen. Sit down, take a deep breath, and list all the tasks you need to accomplish. Although there is never enough time to do everything, there is always enough time to do the most important things.
Once you have listed your tasks, ask yourself this question: "If I were to be called out of town for a month and I could finish only one thing on this list, which one thing would it be?" Think it through, and circle that one item. Then ask yourself: "If I could do only one more thing before I was called out of town for a month, what would it be?" This is the second thing you circle.
Continue with this exercise until you have sorted out the highest priorities on your list. Then number each according to its importance. You are now ready to begin working effectively toward the achievement of your major goals.
Another good way to set priorities once you have determined your major objectives is with the A-B-C-D-E method. You place one of those letters in the margin before each of the tasks on your list.
"A" stands for "very important; must do; severe negative consequences if not completed."
"B" stands for "important; should do; but not as important as my ‘A’ tasks, and only minor negative consequences if not completed."
"C" stands for "nice to do; but not as important as ‘A’ or ‘B,’ and no negative consequences for not completing."
"D" stands for "delegate or assign to someone else who can do the task in my place."
"E" stands for "eliminate if possible."
When you use the A-B-C-D-E method, you can easily sort out what is important and unimportant. This will focus your time and attention on those tasks that are most essential.
Once you can clearly see the one or two things that you should be doing above all others, just say no to diversions and distractions and focus single-mindedly on those priorities.
Much of the stress that people experience comes from working on low-priority tasks. The amazing thing is that as soon as you start working on your highest-value activity, your stress disappears. You begin to feel a continuous stream of energy and enthusiasm. As you work toward the completion of something that is really important, you feel an increased sense of personal value and inner satisfaction. You experience a sensation of self-mastery and self-control. You feel calm, confident, and capable.
Here are six ideas that you can use to set priorities and keep yourself working at your best:
Resolve, today, to set clear priorities in every area of your life, and always choose the activities that will assure you the greatest health, happiness, and prosperity in the long term. The long term comes soon enough, and every sacrifice that you make today will be rewarded with compound interest in the great future that lies ahead for you.
[Ed. Note: Brian Tracy is one of America 's leading authorities on the development of human potential and personal effectiveness. With Brian's Ultimate Goal Achieving Package, you can discover a simple and easy-to-learn way to get everything you want out of life. Learn more here.]
The more power and influence you develop on the job, the more you will be paid and the faster you will be promoted.
There are three types of power that you can develop at work, all of which can be extremely helpful to you in getting ahead.
The first type of power you can develop is expert power.
The expert in any organization is the person who has taken the time to become extremely competent in a critical area. Often, the expert in an organization is even more powerful than the senior executives, because that individual is largely irreplaceable. This is sometimes called the "critical skill" of the company, because it is vital to continued cash flow, growth, and even the survival of the business.
The second type of power is ascribed power.
This is a form of unofficial power that gravitates toward you, like iron filings toward a magnet, because you are the kind of person others like and respect and enjoy being around. In every work situation, there is a person with ascribed power. This person has an influence out of proportion to his or her job, because people come to him or her for advice, for counsel, to solve problems, and because he or she is a genuinely likable person. Ascribed power enables you to influence a greater number of people than you could without it. And it often leads to promotions and opportunities that would not have arisen in its absence.
The key to gaining ascribed power is to be pleasant with everyone. Be positive and upbeat. Be cheerful. Get a reputation for being nice. Have something positive to say to each person about each person. Never complain. Ask people questions about themselves, and be a good listener. Ascribed power can help you go far in a short period of time.
The third type of power in an organization is position power.
This is the power and authority that goes along with a particular position or title. For example, the person who is in charge of sales has the authority to make decisions with regard to the sales force. The person who is in charge of finance has the authority to make decisions with regard to how monies are allocated and accounted for. Position power is very important in any organization, and one of the jobs of a boss is to make it crystal clear to everyone exactly how much authority goes with an individual’s job title and responsibilities.
You can enhance your position power by using it gently and constructively. Instead of telling people to do things because you have the authority to do so, ask them to help you get a specific job done. The best leaders are excellent, low-pressure salespeople. Even though they have the power to insist that things be done their way, they ask people diplomatically, with tact and sensitivity, to get a particular job done by a particular time.
The more you refrain from asserting your position power, the more people will respect you and be eager to cooperate with you to help you achieve your goals.
You can develop your expert power, ascribed power, and position power by working on your people skills. You gain ascribed power by being a helpful, likable, and cooperative person to work with. You develop expert power by becoming extremely competent in one or two areas where you can make a significant contribution to the organization. And you receive position power in that, as you increase your talents, you will be given more people to influence so that you can help the company achieve greater productivity.
Now, here are three steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, make a decision, right now, to develop "expert power" by becoming very good at your job.
Second, resolve to increase your "ascribed power" by being positive, polite, and cheerful with everyone, even when you don’t feel like it.
Third, increase your "position power" by taking the time to work closely with your staff and help them do their jobs better and easier.
[Ed. Note: Brian Tracy is one of America 's leading authorities on the development of human potential and personal effectiveness. With Brian's Ultimate Goal Achieving Package, you can discover a simple and easy-to-learn way to get everything you want out of life. Learn more here.]