Time Treasure

How to Succeed in Business

2010-08-01T15:25:00.000-07:00

by Brian Tracy on Aug 1, 2010

Build Your Own Business

The high road to becoming a self-made millionaire in America is starting and building your own business.

But this is not as easy as it sounds.

Most businesses started by inexperienced people fail.

Probably the primary reason why people don’t start businesses is because they’re afraid that they’re going to lose their money and for good reason.

99 percent of businesses started by people lacking business experience fail within the first two or three years.

Why Businesses Fail

And why is that?

It’s because they don’t know how to succeed.

They haven’t the slightest idea how to make a business successful.

They may have an idea for a product or service, but they don’t know all the things that they need to know to run a successful business.

Why Businesses Succeed

However, surprisingly enough, 80 percent of businesses started by experienced businesspeople succeed.

Now why should this be so?

The reason is because experienced businesspeople know what to do.

They know how to purchase their products and their services.

They know how to negotiate with their suppliers.

They know how to raise money.

They know how to negotiate leases.

They know how to sell and to market.

They know how to manage their finances.

In other words, experience is the key.

In order to start your own business and succeed, you have to learn how.

Succeed in business with How You Can Start, Build, Manage or Turn Around Any Business Home Study Course.

Competence Makes the Difference

Now according to Dunn and Bradstreet, 96 percent of businesses in America that fail, fail because of what is called "managerial incompetence".

Managerial incompetence means that the people running the businesses don’t know what they’re doing.

And here are the two critical areas of managerial incompetence that cause business failure.

First is sales and marketing.

48 percent of businesses that fail in America fail because the business cannot sell enough of its products or services.

Very few businesses fail when they have high levels of sales and revenues coming in.

Control Your Costs

The second reason that businesses fail, 46 percent, is because of poor cost control.

They may be selling enough on the front end, but they’re losing so much on the back end that they go broke anyway.

Sales and marketing, financing and cost control, both require experience.

And if you’re serious about becoming financially independent, you have to learn how to do both of these.

Put Luck On Your Side

You must learn the skills you need to be successful. Business success is not a matter of luck.

Business success is a matter of application.

It’s a matter of ability. It’s a matter of experience and skill and intelligence, and wonderfully enough, you can learn what you need to know to be successful.

And you can start by learning through on-the-job training, which is called OJT.

Most successful businesspeople become successful because they get all their training by working for someone else.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to make sure that your business succeeds greatly:

First, take the time to get the knowledge and experience you need in business by working for someone else where you can learn a lot in a short period of time.

Go to work in an area in which you are interested and learn everything you possibly can.

Second, read and study in business, especially entrepreneurial business, all the time.

Read one or two business books per week and read every business magazine that is published on your subject.

Never stop learning and growing.

Boosting the Customer's Self-Esteem

2010-07-19T08:46:00.000-07:00

by Brian Tracy on July 19, 2010

Listening Builds Self-Esteem

It has been said that, "Rapt attention is the highest form of flattery."

When you listen intently to another person and it is clear that you genuinely care about what that other person is saying, his or her self-esteem goes up.

His or her feeling of personal value increases.

He or she feels more worthwhile and important as a human being.

You can actually make another person feel terrific about himself or herself by listening in a warm, genuine, caring way to everything he or she has to say.

When a man and a woman go out for the first time, they spend an inordinate amount of time talking and listening to each other.

They look into each other’s eyes and hang on every word.

They are each fascinated by the personality of the other.

The more each listens to the other, the more positive and happy each of them feel and the stronger becomes the bonds of affection between them.

The Opposite of Listening is Ignoring

You always listen to that which you most value.

You always ignore that which you devalue.

The fastest way to turn a person off, to hurt their feelings and make them feel slighted and angry is to simply ignore what they are saying or interrupt them in the middle of a thought.

Ignoring or interrupting is the equivalent of an emotional slap in the face.

Men especially have to be careful about their natural desire to make a remark or an observation in the middle of a conversation.

This can often cause the sales conversation to come to a grinding halt.

Action Exercises

Now, here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, take every opportunity to make the other person feel important by listening attentively to what he or she says.

Second, avoid interrupting the other person by slowing down and pausing for a few moments after he or she has stopped speaking.

Increase Your Three Types of Energy

2010-07-08T12:37:00.000-07:00

by Brian Tracy on July 8, 2010

Most successful people can be characterized as having very high levels of energy.

Since energy is the fuel with which everything is achieved, there seems to be a direct relationship between energy levels and levels of accomplishment.

It is hard to imagine a tired, burned-out person achieving much in life.

On the other hand, energetic, positive, forward-moving individuals seem to get and enjoy far more of the things life has to offer than does the average person.

Physical Energy is Basic

We have been led to believe that there is basically one kind of energy.

We supposedly replenish this energy by sleeping at night, and during the day, we use it up again.

It is as though we are machines powered by batteries, and each night we recharge our batteries for seven or eight hours.

However, there are some problems with this view of energy.

The biggest problem is that it does not deal with the fact that there are actually three different kinds of energy, each of which is necessary for maximum performance.

The three main forms are physical energy, emotional energy, and mental energy.

Each of these energies is different, but they are interrelated, and they depend on each other.

The Sweat of Your Brow

Physical energy is raw energy, coarse energy, bulk energy, what we call "meat-and-potatoes" energy.

Your physical energy is what you use to do physical labor.

It is the primary energy applied by men and women who earn their livings by the sweat of their brow.

The Source of Enthusiasm

The second form of energy is emotional energy.

This is the energy of enthusiasm and excitement.

This is the energy that lends sparkle to the life of an individual.

This is the energy that is necessary for feeling love, happiness, and joy.

Largely, it is your emotional energy that makes life enjoyable for you.

In fact, almost everything you say and do is determined in some way by an emotion, either positive or negative.

Learn to gain more energy with Fit and Trim for Life.

The Requirement for Creativity

Mental energy is the energy of creativity, of problem solving and decision making.

You use mental energy to make sales, write reports and proposals, plan your day and your week, and learn new subjects.

Your level of mental energy is a major determinant of the quality of your life.

Conserve Your Best Energies

The reason why most people fail to realize their potential in life and work is because they burn up their energy at the emotional level, or the physical level; therefore, they have very little energy left over for mental activities.

Most people burn up their emotional energy through the expression of negative emotions.

Negative emotions are like a fire that burns up their energy so quickly that they have very little left with which to think positively and constructively.

In fact, one five-minute uncontrolled outburst of anger can burn up as much energy as an average person would use in eight hours of work.

Your job is to think continually about how you can stay calm and positive, and work smoothly and efficient, so you can have more mental energy to do the things that are most important to you in life.

Action Exercises
Here are three things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action:

First, take time to identify the different ways that you either use up or deplete your levels of physical, emotional and mental energy. How could you improve in each area?

Second, be sure to get plenty of healthful, nutritious food so you can keep your physical energy at high levels. This is the key to all other energies.

Third, look for ways to conserve your emotional energies by being more relaxed and optimistic in the face of daily problems and disappointments.

The more energy you have, the happier and more productive you will be.

The law of Saving

2010-06-29T18:33:00.000-07:00

by Brian Tracy
June 29 2010

Financial freedom comes to the person who saves ten percent or more of his income throughout his lifetime.

One of the smartest things that you can ever do for yourself is to develop the habit of saving part of your salary, every single paycheck.

Individuals, families and even societies are stable and prosperous to the degree to which they have high savings rates.

Savings today are what guarantee the security and the possibilities of tomorrow.

Start With Yourself

The first corollary of the Law of Saving comes from the book The Richest Man in Babylon by George Classon.

It is to "Pay yourself first."

Begin today to save ten percent of your earnings, off the top, and never touch it.

This is your fund for long-term financial accumulation and you never use it for any other reason except to assure your financial future.

Secure your future with help from The Unbreakable Laws of Money Package

Develop New Habits Regarding Money

The remarkable thing is that when you pay yourself first, and force yourself to live on the other ninety percent, you will soon become accustomed to it.

You are a creature of habit.

When you regularly put away ten percent of your earnings, you soon become comfortable living on the other ninety percent.

Many people start by saving ten percent of their income and then graduate to saving fifteen percent, twenty percent, and even more.

And their financial lives change dramatically as a result.

So will yours.

Take Every Advantage
The second corollary of the Law of Saving says, "Take advantage of tax deferred savings and investment plans."

Because of high and even multiple tax rates, money that is saved or invested without being taxed accumulates at a rate of 30% to 40% faster than money that is subject to taxation.

Self-made millionaires, according to Dr Thomas Stanley’s book The Millionaire Next Door, are almost obsessive about accumulating their funds in assets such as real estate, self owned businesses and equities that increase in value without triggering tax liabilities.

Invest in company pension and retirement plans, 401(k) plans, IRA’s, Keough Plans, Roth IRA’s, Education Investment Accounts, stock option programs and whatever else has been approved by the IRS for long term financial accumulation.

Make every dollar count!

Action Exercises

Here are two things you can do to apply this law immediately:

First, begin today to put away ten percent of your earnings.

Set up a special account for this purpose and treat your contributions to this account with the same respect that you do your rent or mortgage payments each month.

Second, become a lifelong student of money.

Read the best books, take courses and subscribe to the most helpful magazines.

Know what you are doing so you can always make intelligent decisions when you invest your funds.

Starting Small

2010-06-19T18:23:00.000-07:00

Brian Tracy on Jun 19, 2008

How and why you can start your own business with little or no money by using sweat equity.

Everyone Starts Off Broke

I used to feel sorry for myself because I came from a limited background and I had no money.

Then I found that nobody has any money.

Everyone starts off broke.

In fact, most successful people go broke or nearly broke several times during their lives.

Don’t let this hold you back.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Transformational leaders empower others by keeping them "in the know," by keeping them fully informed on everything that effects their jobs.

People want and need to feel that they are "insiders," that they are aware of everything that is going on.

There is nothing so demoralizing to a staff member than to be kept in the dark about their work and what is going on in the company.

But if you are willing to put in the time to learn, remember about 95 percent of the working population in America have the ability to start and build their own businesses if they would only do it.

Multi-level marketing is an excellent second income opportunity where you can learn vital business skills at low cost.

Especially selling, organizing, making presentations, accounting, team building, negotiating, persuading, and communicating.

85 percent of what you need to learn to be successful in business you can learn from running a successful multi-level marketing business.

Learn The Universal Laws of Success and Achievement

Roll Up Your Sleeves

Remember this, though.

Leaders are always willing to do what is called dog work.

They’re willing to render humble service.

They’re willing to roll up their sleeves and plunge in.

They never think of themselves as being too good for a job.

There are an enormous number of people who are presented with second income opportunities who turn them down because they think that they’re too good to do something like that.

But the people who are thinking that they are too good are the people who retire poor.

You’ll find that leaders of all organizations are always willing to roll up their sleeves and to get in there.

Action Exercises

Now, here are two things you can do to put these ideas into action immediately:

First, remember that buying and selling things is the essence of all business.

Look for opportunities to buy and sell things on your own account.

Visit garage sales or hold a garage sale of your own. Visit swap meets and negotiate with people with things for sale.

Make it a game to learn these skills.

Second, start in a small business of some kind.

Look for a second income or multi level marketing opportunity where you can buy and sell on a small scale.

Many people become wealthy starting off with virtually nothing in this way.

The Principle of the Objective

2010-06-10T12:04:00.000-07:00

by Brian Tracy on Jun 10, 2010

Learn from the Lessons of History

The concepts of military strategy have been studied and written about for more than 4,000 years, going back to the early works of General Sun-Tzu in China more than 2,000 years BC.

These principles of strategy that have been developed and perfected over the centuries have direct applications and implications for strategic thinking, both personally and corporately.

Decide In Advance What You Want

The most important military principle is the Principle of the Objective.

This principle requires that you decide in advance exactly what it is that you are trying to accomplish.

What exactly is your objective?

In my experience, fully 80% of all problems in personal and corporate life come from a lack of clarity with regard to objectives and goals.

Clarity Is Critical

Clarity of objective precedes all other elements in strategic thinking.

Here are some questions that you can use over and over again to focus and clarify your objectives.

The first question is, "What am I trying to do?"
The second question is, "How am I trying to do it?"
The third question is, "What are my assumptions?"
And the fourth question is, "What if my assumptions were wrong?"

Question Your Assumptions

Having the courage to ask these questions, and to question your assumptions, both spoken and unspoken, is a key mark of the superior person.

Sometimes individuals avoid questioning their assumptions for fear that they will have to change their minds or do something other than what they started out to do.

However, false assumptions lie at the root of almost every failure.

The only way that you can root out these wrong assumptions is by carefully analyzing them and discussing them, and then by demanding proof or evidence that these assumptions are still valid.

Project Forward In Your Mind

Another method for clarifying your objectives is for you to project forward and look backward.

In other words, imagine that you have already achieved the objective that you are working toward.

Project yourself forward in your mind and then look back to the present day, to the present moment.

What do you see?

What changes could you make looking back from this imaginary perspective of hindsight?

This is a key peak performance thinking technique.

Think clearly with The Power of Clarity

Determine Why You Want It

The final part of clarifying your objectives revolves around your identifying the reasons why you want to achieve this objective in the first place.

Why is it important?

Is it still as important as when you started off?

Is this objective more important than any other objective that you could be working on?

It is essential that you be clear about the answers to these questions.

Action Exercises

Here are two things you can do immediately to apply the principle of the objective to your personal and business life:

First, take out a piece of paper and answer the question:

"What am I trying to do?"

What are your goals?

What are your objectives?

Why are you doing what you are doing in the first place?

Is this the very best use of your time and energy?

Second, question your assumptions.

What things are you assuming are true about yourself, the people around you and the situation?

What if one of these assumptions turned out to be false?

What changes would you have to make if you found that your most cherished assumptions were not

based on reality,

or were contradicted by facts?

TRUST YOUR INTUITION

2010-06-03T09:19:00.000-07:00

by Brian Tracy on Jun 3, 2010

The Essence of Business Success

The essence of a successful business is really quite simple.

It is your ability to offer a product or service that people will pay for at a price sufficiently above your costs, ideally three or four or five times your cost, thereby giving you a profit that enables you to buy and to offer more products and services.

Add Value in Some Way

The key to a successful business is to add value by bringing the product or service from another place to where you’re selling it, or by creating the product or service and selling it at a price higher than your total cost of production.

You become wealthy by either selling a few products or services at high prices, or by selling many products or services at lower prices with smaller profits.

The Best Strategy of All

The best strategy, of course, is to aim to sell a larger volume with a smaller profit on each item.

Most great fortunes in America have been made selling large quantities of products over a wide area, thereby broadening the market and reducing your dependency on just a few customers.

Go From the Known to the Unknown

Early in my business career, I learned another key rule for business success and it’s simply this.

Start off in an established field and only experiment with new products or services out of your profits from your established business.

Learn the Way To Wealth System

Success Leaves Tracks: Follow Them

One reason many entrepreneurs fail is that they have grandiose ideas of being the first into the market with a brand new, untried, unproven product.

Don’t you fall into this trap.

As you begin to magnetize your mind with visual images of wealth and success, as you begin looking everywhere for profitable ideas, you will begin to attract into your life the people and opportunities you need to achieve your goals.

I’ve learned from long experience that you must learn to trust your intuition, your gut feeling concerning any business decision.

Flood Your Mind With Ideas

Read every publication, explore every opportunity.

Remain open to all ideas.

But in the final analysis, trust yourself.

Trust your inner voice to tell you the right thing to do.

All great businesspeople become great by listening to their inner guide.

It will never fail to lead you to your highest good and heaven help the person who refuses to listen to it.

Action Exercises

Here are two things you can do to start a successful business by trusting your intuition before you make a final decision:

First, always remember that the key to success in business is your ability to add value to your customers by providing them with something they want and need at a price that enables you to make a profit.

Keep your thinking focused on the benefit that your customer will enjoy from what you are offering.

Second, get all the information you possibly can.

Speak to as many people as possible.

And finally, sit down quietly by yourself and listen to your intuition before you make the final decision.

This is the best investment of all.

BUILD YOUR OWN BUSINESS

2010-05-23T19:27:00.000-07:00

by Brian Tracy on May 23, 2010

The high road to becoming a self-made millionaire in America is starting and building your own business.

But this is not as easy as it sounds.

Most businesses started by inexperienced people fail.

Probably the primary reason why people don’t start businesses is because they’re afraid that they’re going to lose their money and for good reason.

99 percent of businesses started by people lacking business experience fail within the first two or three years.

Why Businesses Fail

And why is that? It’s because they don’t know how.

They haven’t the slightest idea how to make a business successful.

They may have an idea for a product or service, but they don’t know all the things that they need to know to run a successful business.

Why Businesses Succeed

However, surprisingly enough, 80 percent of businesses started by experienced businesspeople succeed.

Now why should this be so? The reason is because experienced businesspeople know what to do.

They know how to purchase their products and their services.

They know how to negotiate with their suppliers.

They know how to raise money.

They know how to negotiate leases.

They know how to sell and to market.

They know how to manage their finances.

In other words, experience is the key.

In order to start your own business and succeed, you have to learn how.

Learn how with 21 Great Ways to Start and Build Your Own Successful Business

Control Your Costs

The second reason that businesses fail, 46 percent, is because of poor cost control.

They may be selling enough on the front end, but they’re losing so much on the back end that they go broke anyway.

Sales and marketing, financing and cost control, both require experience.

And if you’re serious about becoming financially independent, you have to learn how to do both of these.

Put Luck On Your Side

You must learn the skills you need to be successful.

Business success is not a matter of luck.

Business success is a matter of application.

It’s a matter of ability.

It’s a matter of experience and skill and intelligence, and wonderfully enough, you can learn what you need to know to be successful.

And you can start by learning through on-the-job training, which is called OJT.

Most successful businesspeople become successful because they get all their training by working for someone else.

Action Exercises

Here are two things you can do immediately to make sure that your business succeeds greatly:

First, take the time to get the knowledge and experience you need in business by working for someone else where you can learn a lot in a short period of time.

Go to work in an area in which you are interested and learn everything you possibly can.

Second, read and study in business, especially entrepreneurial business, all the time.

Read one or two business books per week and read every business magazine that is published on your subject.

Never stop learning and growing.

THE WAY TO WEALTH

2010-05-19T08:47:00.000-07:00

BY Brian Tracy on May 19, 2010

When I was growing up, my dream, and my fantasy was to be a millionaire by the age of 30.

I soon found out this is a common dream; everyone wants to be a millionaire by the age of 30.

Throughout my twenties, I traveled and worked all over the world, touching down in eighty countries on five continents.

I worked at a variety of different jobs, from washing dishes and running barbed wire on a ranch all the way through to factory work, construction work and finally into sales and sales management.

But by the time I reached the age of thirty, I was as broke as I was at the age of twenty.

Then, I really got serious. I began asking, “Why are some people more successful than others?”

In the Bible it says, “Seek and ye shall find, for all who seek, findeth.”

Whenever you start looking for the answer to an important question, you will start to find that answer, and sometimes in the most remarkable places.

My first realization was that I didn’t know anything about millionaires.

For many years, I had dreamed of becoming a millionaire, but I didn’t know how people achieved that magic number, starting from nothing.

Over the next few years, I read everything I could find about self-made millionaires.

I discovered that this type of person had been exhaustedly studied and researched, interviewed and questioned, and very definite profiles of people who become millionaires had emerged.

The bottom line is that fully 80% of self-made millionaires started off in sales or entrepreneurship.

Most of them came from average or humbled beginnings.

Many did not graduate from high school or go to college.

Many were immigrants who arrived on these shores with no friends, no contacts, no money, limited education and no language skills.

And yet somehow they went on to become millionaires within one generation.

What they all had in common was a combination of vision plus courage.

They had a clear vision or dream of becoming financially successful, although most of them started out with no idea at all how they would achieve this goal.

Most importantly, they had the courage to step out in faith, into the unknown, risking the loss of time and effort, with no guarantee of success.

Most people who become millionaires achieve their wealth in a way that is completely different from the way that they first anticipated.

In a thirteen year study at Babson College, they found that successful entrepreneurs and business builders had one quality.

They were willing to “launch” toward their goal, and then make continual course corrections as they got feedback from their activities.

Today, there are 26 million businesses in the United States, and entrepreneurs are forming new businesses at the rate of about one million per year.

Unfortunately, 95% of entrepreneurs earn less than $50,000 per year, no matter how many years they had been working, or how many hours they worked each week.

Why is this? Why is it that intelligent, ambitious, hard-working men and woman, who have the vision and courage to start their own businesses, struggle year after year, often earning less than they would if they took a salary job? Why does this happen?

The answer is simple. People who succeed in business and become millionaires are those who “know more” about their business and the market than other people do.

People who become millionaires invariably focus and concentrate with laser like determination on mastering the essential skills necessary to build a profitable enterprise.

Fortunately, all business skills are learnable.

You can learn any skill you need to learn to achieve any goal you set for yourself, as long as your goal is clear.

You can learn how to market and sell, how to negotiate and persuade.

You can learn how to do costing and pricing for your products and services.

You can learn how to select, interview and hire the key people you need to grow your business.

You can learn how to borrow money from your bank and from twenty-five other sources used by successful business people.

You can learn how to do joint-ventures and form strategic alliances.

You can learn how to correctly analyze a business opportunity before you get into it, thereby saving you enormous amounts of money and time.

Today, there are more opportunities for you to achieve financial success, and to become a millionaire, than have ever existed in history before.

And even though the economy goes through ups and downs, fluctuating like the stock market, the overall trend is positive in more than 90% of cases.

Begin today.

Set a goal to become financially independent and determine the exact amount of money that you want to have to achieve this objective.

Sit down, make a plan.

Set priorities.

And then launch toward your goal with complete commitment and determination.

Resolve in advance that you will never give up.

You will learn from every experience.

You will study every aspect of your business so that you are considered an expert in your field.

You will continually make new plans to replace the old plans that don’t work.

You will except feedback and self-correct as you move forward.

You will never give up.

If you will do these things, including reading my series, “The Way to Wealth” books one, two and three; there is nothing that can stop you from achieving your financial goals in the months and years ahead.

Good luck!

Transformational Leadership

2010-05-13T06:29:00.000-07:00

Brian Tracy on May 13, 2010

Advancing Your Career

As your career advances, you move along the scale from employee, to supervisor to manager and finally, to leader.

Managers, and some leaders, engage in what is called transactional leadership, the deployment and management of people and resources to get results.

Arouse Emotion In Others

However, at the highest end of the leadership scale, we come to what is called "transformational leadership."

Transformational leadership is defined as leadership that arouses emotion, that taps into the emotional and spiritual resources of an organization.

Transformational leadership empowers people to greatly exceed their previous levels of accomplishment.

Make People Feel Terrific

Empowerment is the key.

Transformational leaders are those who can elicit extraordinary performance from ordinary men and women.

The superior leader is like a catalyst in a chemical process that causes the other ingredients to work together in a superior fashion.

Become an outstanding manager with the Leadership for Results Package.

A Key Function of Leadership

Empowerment as a key function of leadership becomes even more important as the work force becomes dominated by members of the Generation X.

These highly individualistic men and women are increasingly seeking higher meaning and purpose in their careers.

They are not impressed by authority or hierarchy.

If they don’t get the satisfaction they are seeking from their work, they will go somewhere else.

And the better they are at what they do, the more readily they will leave one job for another.

Provide the Emotional Glue

Transactional leadership is essential to getting the job done but transformational leadership is what provides the emotional glue that causes organizations and the people in them to excel.

Action Exercises

Here are two things you can do immediately to become a transformational leader and empower your people.

First, get excited about your work.

The more excited and committed you are to your work, the more excited and committed will be the people around you.

The leader always sets the tone for the department or organization.

Second, continually encourage and praise the people who work for you.

The better you make people feel about themselves and their work, the more empowered they will feel and the more committed they will be to your company.

FIVE WAYS TO BECOME WEALTHY

2010-05-10T17:12:00.000-07:00

by Brian Tracy on May 10, 2008

The Five Roads to Financial Success in America and How to Choose Your Own

There are basically five ways that you can become wealthy starting with nothing in America based on over 25 years of research into American millionaires.

Number one, you can inherit it.

Less than 10 percent of wealthy Americans inherited any of their money, and it’s less and less every single year.

The Second Way

The second way that you can become wealthy is you can achieve it professionally.

You can become a doctor or a lawyer or an architect or an accountant.

You can become extremely good at what you do, be paid very well, and hold on to the money.

The Third Way

The third way you can achieve it is you can become a senior executive of a large corporation.

You can be highly paid; you can have stock options and bonuses.

And if you stay with the company long enough, for enough years, you can be paid enough to become wealthy.

The Fourth Way

You can win it.

But only a tiny fraction of one percent of wealthy Americans got that way by winning their money some way or another.

As a matter of fact, the odds against you winning the lottery are the equivalent of lightning striking twice in the same place.

They’re millions and millions to one.

Learn the Way To Wealth System

The Best Way

The fifth way that you can become wealthy is you can start your own business and earn it all by yourself.

Starting your own business has been and will always be the high road to becoming wealthy for most self-made millionaires.

Entrepreneurship in America offers more opportunities and opens more doors than all other possibilities put together.

This is why it has been said that if you have the ability to start your own business and you don’t do it, you are a fool.

I’ll repeat that.

If you have the ability to start your own business and you don’t do it, you’re a fool.

Where do you start?

You start by getting your finances under control.

The very first thing you do is you make a decision to get your finances under control.

Some years ago, a man named George Classon wrote a book called The Richest Man In Babylon.

It’s a classic on financial success and what Classon said in that book was that the key to becoming wealthy is to pay yourself first.

Take ten percent off your earnings, off your gross income every month and put it aside.

Learn to live on ninety percent or less of your gross income.

So the very first thing that you do is you begin to save your money.

Action Exercises

Now, here are two things you can do immediately to put yourself onto the high road to personal wealth:

First, resolve today to begin saving your money a little bit at a time.

Set a goal to save 10% of your earnings, to put it away and to never touch it.

This will change your life.

Second, immediately register your own business or sole proprietorship.

Open a bank account, get business cards and letterhead and create the corporate entity under which you can do business.

Your business opportunities will appear far sooner than you think.

If you build it, they will come.

The Invitational close

2010-05-02T18:03:00.000-07:00

Brian Tracy on May 3, 2010

The Invitational Close is simple, low-key, classy and powerful.

You use it at the end of a sales conversation to conclude the transaction.

It is preceded by a Trial Close such as: "Mr. Prospect, do you have any questions or concerns that I haven’t covered up to now?" Or, "Mr. Prospect, does this make sense to you, so far?

Probe for Lingering Objections

You ask these questions to be doubly sure that the prospect has no final objections lurking in the back of his mind that would block the closing of the sales process.

You then invite the customer to make a buying decision by saying, "If you like what I’ve shown you, why don’t you give it a try?"

Invite the Customer to Buy

Inviting the customer to buy is very powerful.

This is a gentle way of nudging the customer into taking action.

"Why don’t you give it a try?" If you are selling services, you can ask, "Why don’t you give us a try?"

If you want to be more bold and direct, you can simply ask, "Why don’t you take it?"

Change Your Wording

One of my seminar graduates doubled his sales by changing his words in the endgame of selling.

After his sales presentation he would ask the prospect if he had any additional questions or concerns.

If the prospect said "no," he would then ask, "Well, if you like it, why don’t you take it?"

He was amazed to find that many prospects could not think of a good reason not to go ahead with his offering immediately.

Both his closing ratio and his income soared.

Action Exercises

Here is something you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

The next time you complete your sales presentation, simply issue an invitation to the customer to make a decision.

"Why don’t you give it a try?"

You may be surprised at your success

Becoming a Motivational Leader

2010-04-27T07:07:00.000-07:00

by Brian Tracy on Apr 27, 2010

Create a Big Vision

To become a motivational leader, you start with motivating yourself.

You motivate yourself with a big vision, and as you move progressively toward its realization, you motivate and enthuse others to work with you to fulfill that vision.

Set High Standards

You exhibit absolute honesty and integrity with everyone in everything you do.

You are the kind of person others admire and respect and want to be like.

You set a standard that others aspire to.

You live in truth with yourself and others so that they feel confident giving you their support and their commitment.

Face Your Fears

You demonstrate courage in everything you do by facing doubts and uncertainties and moving forward regardless.

You put up a good front even when you feel anxious about the outcome.

You don’t burden others with your fears and misgivings.

You keep them to yourself.

You constantly push yourself out of your comfort zone and in the direction of your goals.

And no matter how bleak the situation might appear, you keep on keeping on with a smile.

Be Realistic About Your Situation

You are intensely realistic.

You refuse to engage in mental games or self-delusion.

You encourage others to be realistic and objective about their situations as well.

You encourage them to realize and appreciate that there is a price to pay for everything they want.

They have weaknesses that they will have to overcome, and they have standards that they will have to meet, if they want to survive and thrive in a competitive market.

Accept Responsibility

You accept complete responsibility for results.

You refuse to make excuses or blame others or hold grudges against people who you feel may have wronged you.

You say, "If it’s to be, it’s up to me."

You repeat over and over the words, "I am responsible.

I am responsible.

I am responsible."

Take Vigorous Action

Finally, you take action.

You know that all mental preparation and character building is merely a prelude to action.

It’s not what you say but what you do that counts.

The mark of the true leader is that he or she leads the action.

He or she is willing to go first.

He or she sets the example and acts as the role model.

He or she does what he or she expects others to do.

Strive For Excellence

You become a motivational leader by motivating yourself.

And you motivate yourself by striving toward excellence, by committing yourself to becoming everything you are capable of becoming.

You motivate yourself by throwing your whole heart into doing your job in an excellent fashion.

You motivate yourself and others by continually looking for ways to help others to improve their lives and achieve their goals.

You become a motivational leader by becoming the kind of person others want to get behind and support in every way.

Your main job is to take complete control of your personal evolution and become a leader in every area of your life.

You could ask for nothing more, and you should settle for nothing less.

Action Exercises

Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, see yourself as an outstanding person, parent, coworker and leader in everything you do.

Pattern your behavior after the very best people you know.

Set high standards and refuse to compromise them.

Second, be clear about your goals and priorities and then take action continually forward.

Develop a sense of urgency.

Keep moving forward and you’ll automatically keep yourself and others motivated.

The Continuous Improvement Formula

2010-04-18T21:22:00.000-07:00

by Brian Tracy on Apr 18, 2010

Put Your Career on the Fast Track

There are many things you can do to put your career onto the fast track.

You can set clear, specific goals for each area of your life and then make plans to accomplish them.

You can plan your work and work your plan.

Ask For Greater Responsibility

You can accept 100% responsibility for everything you are and everything you become.

You can refuse to make excuses or to blame others.

You can tell your boss that you want greater responsibilities and then when you get them, put your whole heart into doing an excellent job.

Utilize Your Inborn Talents

In the parable of the talents in the New Testament, Jesus says, "Oh good and faithful servant, you have been faithful over small things.

I will make you master over large things."

If you too will carry out every assignment to the very best of your ability, you will be given larger and more important things to do and you’ll be paid more as a result.

Dedicate Yourself to Continuous Improvement

The key to long term success is for you to dedicate yourself to continuous improvement.

If you become one tenth of one percent more productive each day, that amounts to 1/1000th improvement per working day.

Is that possible? Of course it is!

Improve a Little at a Time

If you become one tenth of one percent more productive each day, that amounts to one half of one percent more productive each week.

One half of one percent more productive each week amounts to two percent more productive each month and 26% more productive each year.

The cumulative effect if becoming a tiny bit better at your field and more productive amounts to a tremendous increase in your value and your output over time.

How to Double Your Productivity

Twenty-six percent more productive each year, with compounding, amounts to doubling your overall productivity and performance every 2.7 years.

If you become 26% more productive each year, with compounding, times 10 years, you will be 1004% more productive over the next decade. That is an increase of ten times over ten years.

The Reason For All Great Successes

This is called the Law of Accumulation, or the Principle of Incremental Improvement.

It is the primary reason for all great success stories.

By the yard, it’s hard. But inch by inch, anything’s a cinch!

Become A 1000% Person

Make a decision, right now, to be a 1000% person.

Commit yourself to continuous personal and professional development.

Read, listen to audio programs and take additional courses.

This process will completely transform your life.

Action Exercises

Here are two things you can do to put these ideas into action immediately.

First, make a plan to become a little bit better every single day.

Learn and apply one new idea each day to help you to become more productive and effective at your work.

The incremental effect will amaze you.

Second, be patient.

Don’t expect overnight changes or instant results.

Remember the story of the tortoise and the hare.

Become a little bit better each day and your future will take care of itself.

Opportunities Are Unlimited

2010-04-13T20:26:00.000-07:00

by Brian Tracy on Apr 13, 2010

There have never been so many opportunities to start and build a successful business than there are today.

One Million Every Year

Ambitious individuals like you, with dreams and hopes, are starting new businesses today at a faster rate than ever before.

Over one million new enterprises are being launched each year, and the rate is accelerating.

The opportunities for finding or developing a new business idea are all around you, and with proper preparation, the possibilities for your success are enormous.

No Better Time Than Today

As many as 80 percent of all the products and services in common use today at home, in business and in organizations large and small, will be obsolete in five years.

They’ll be replaced by new and better products and services.

The rapid development of new technology and the desire of people for new or better or cheaper products or services means that you can start your fortune easier today than at any other time in history.

Avoiding Failure, Assuring Success

However, we know that 80 to 90 percent of new businesses fail in the first three years due to a variety of factors.

One of those factors is managerial incompetence.

It is an inability to sell the product or an inability to control costs or both.

Another major reason for failure is offering the wrong product at the wrong price to the wrong market at the wrong time, or a combination of these.

In which case, even the best marketing efforts and cost controls won’t help you.

Determine the Need

The first principle with regard to selecting any new product or service is to determine that it fills a genuine, existing need, that it solves a problem of some kind for the customer, or that it makes the life or work of the customer better in some way.

You must be very clear about this.

Sell a Quality Product or Service

The second principle for success with a new product or service is that it must be of good quality at a fair price.

And if it is in competition with other similar products or services, it must have what is called a unique selling proposition.

It must have some beneficial feature or attraction that makes it different from and superior to its competitors.

Your Area of Uniqueness

We call this its area of uniqueness.

And it is central to success in business.

No product or service can succeed unless it is somehow unique and superior to any other product or service like it.

There is seldom any real opportunity in what is called a "me too" product - one that is just the same as all the others.

At the same time, the safest business strategy is to start off with an accepted product that you can improve.

In other words, instead of trying to invent a whole new business or industry, start off with something that people are already doing, people are already buying and using, and find some way to improve it.

Action Exercises

Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action:

First, determine exactly what is different and special about your product or service that will cause people to buy it in competition with similar products or services.

Build your entire sales and marketing around this unique selling proposition.

Second, investigate before you invest.

Be prepared to look at a variety of different business opportunities until you find one that really excites you before you make a decision to get started.

AN ACCUMULATION OF RICHES

2010-04-09T10:40:00.001-07:00

by Brian Tracy on Apr 9, 2010

Little Things Mean A Lot

One of the greatest success principles of all is called the Law of Accumulation.

This law says that everything great and worthwhile in human life is an accumulation of hundreds and sometimes thousands of tiny efforts and sacrifices that nobody ever sees or appreciates.

It says that everything accumulates over time.

That you have to put in many, many, many tiny efforts that nobody sees or appreciates before you achieve anything worthwhile.

It’s like a snowball.

A snowball starts very small, but it grows as it adds millions and millions of tiny snowflakes and continues to grow as it gathers momentum.

Learn What You Need To Learn

There are three areas where the law of accumulation is important.

The first is in the area of knowledge.

Your body of knowledge is a result of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of small pieces of information.

Any person with a large knowledge base has spent thousands of hours building that knowledge base one piece at a time.

And what you see when you meet the individual is an expert in his or her field, with that high level of knowledge that makes him very valuable in the marketplace.

Save Your Money

The second area where the Law of accumulation works is with regard to money.

Every large fortune is an accumulation of hundreds and thousands of small amounts of money, and the place to start is to take any amount of money that you can right now and begin to save it.

When you begin to save money, it sets up a force field of energy and it triggers the law of attraction.

As a result you begin to attract to you even more bits of money to add to your savings.

Do you want to know the laws of success?

There are laws that explain how people act in any given situation.

Laws that explain why some people triumph while others fail.

These laws can predict the outcome in the game of life.

If you learn these laws, and apply them — YOU will become a winner.

Attract Riches Into Your Life

And I’ve spoken to many, many successful people and they’ve told me the same story.

That as soon as you start to put savings aside, it starts to attract into your life and into your work all the money that you need to achieve your goals.

The reason why most people retire poor is they never put the initial savings aside to start with.

Get The Experience You Need

The third area where the law of accumulation applies is in the area of experience.

You’ll find that successful people in any field are those who have far more experience in that field than the average.

And there is nothing that replaces experience.

Whether it’s in business or entrepreneurship or management or parenting or selling or anything else.

Many people do not take the risks that are necessary to move out of their comfort zone because they’re afraid it won’t work out.

Everything Counts

But the fact is that until you move out of the comfort zone and get the experience from making the mistakes, it’s not possible for you to grow and become capable of earning the kind of money that you desire.

Now here’s the key to the law of accumulation.

It says that everything counts.

Everything that you do counts.

The biggest mistake that people make is they think that only what they want to count, counts.

That when you read a book, when you listen to an audio program, when you go to a course, when you go to bed early and you get up early and you work, it all counts.

And it’s all going on the plus side of your ledger.

Use Your Time Well

But when you watch television, waste time, hang out, fool around and so on, all of that counts, as well, and it’s going on the negative side.

A person who has a great life, by the law of accumulation, is a person who’s accumulated far more credits on the credit side than debits on the debit side.

And here’s an important point.

If what you are doing is not moving you towards your goals, then it’s moving you away from your goals.

Nothing is neutral.

Everything that you’re doing is either moving you toward the things that you want to accomplish in life, the person you want to be, the wealth you want to accumulate, or it’s moving you away.

Everything counts.

The law of accumulation says that everything counts.

Action Exercises

First, begin today to build your knowledge base in the subject that can be most helpful to you in achieving financial independence.

Whether it takes a week, a month or a year to become thoroughly knowledgeable, it doesn’t matter.

Just get started today.

Second, get as much experience as you can in your chosen field.

Start a little earlier, work a little harder and stay a little later.

Take risks and try every different way you can think of to achieve your goal.

This experience is invaluable and it accumulates over time.

FEED BACK AND DISCIPLINE

2010-03-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

by Brian Tracy on MARCH 29, 2010

How You Can Be More Effective in Giving Feedback to Your Staff

An important part of business communication is giving feedback, correction and discipline to your staff.

One of the jobs of the manager is to be a teacher, and in some cases a disciplinarian.

This means that, in order to do your job properly, and in order to develop your staff to make their highest potential contribution to the organization, you must give them regular feedback on what they are doing right and where they can improve.

Constructive Criticism

Most people are very tense about giving discipline or what is often called, "constructive criticism."

However you can make it a low stress occasion by focusing on the behavior and the performance rather than on the person.

This requires that you report what you see, rather than what you feel, or your interpretation of events.

Focus on the Behavior

For example, a person comes back from a luncheon two hours late.

Instead of getting angry with the person, you could say, "I see that you took more than two hours for lunch today.

This causes some disruption in the office because of the work that doesn’t get done.

Is there a reason for this long lunch?"

In other words, what you are doing is reporting on the individual’s behavior and leaving the door open for a variety of interpretations or explanations.

The individual may have had a car accident or a medical appointment, or a family emergenc

Thinking About the Future

One of the best ways to deal with poor performance is to focus on the future over the past.

Instead of becoming angry over what has already happened, or not happened, you should explain clearly to the individual what you want to see done differently.

Get an agreement from the individual that the job will be done differently in the future.

Agree to meet on a regular basis to review progress.

Build Self-Esteem

Always end a disciplinary interview with an expression of faith and confidence in the individual.

Always do everything possible to preserve the individual’s self-esteem and self-image.

End the conversation with a positive statement that causes the person to go back to work feeling better about himself or herself.

Aim For Improved Performance

Remember, the only purpose of a session of constructive criticism is to improve performance.

If you lose sight of that and instead you attack or criticize the other person, his or her performance will not improve.

In fact, if you criticize a person too often, the individual will stop doing that job altogether.

Their performance will deteriorate and they will become less and less willing to contribute to the goals of the company.

Action Exercises

First, always criticize or correct a person in private.

When someone has made a mistake or done a poor job, arrange to see them alone, explain your concerns and ask for their explanation - before you say anything.

Second, no matter what has happened, always focus on the future over the past.

Focus on what can be done now rather than what has already happened.

Focus on what the person should do next time rather than the mistake that has already been made.

TWO RULES FOR BUSINESS START-UPS

2010-03-24T20:47:00.001-07:00

by Brian Tracy on MARCH 24, 2010

Entrepreneurship is the art of finding profitable solutions to problems.

Every successful entrepreneur, every successful businessperson has been a person who has been able to identify a problem and come up with a solution to it before somebody else did.

Here are the five rules for entrepreneurship.

Find A Need And Fill It

First, find a need and fill it.

Ross Perot, when he was working for IBM, saw that his customers who were buying IBM computers, needed help in processing their data.

He went to IBM with this idea and they said they weren’t interested, so he started his own business.

He eventually sold it out for $2.8 billion dollars. He found a need and he filled it.

Find A Problem And Solve It

The second rule is to find a problem and solve it.

A secretary working for a small company began mixing flour with nail varnish in order to white out the mistakes she was making in her typing.

Pretty soon, her friends in the same office asked if she could make some for them.

So she began mixing it on her kitchen table.

Then, people in other offices started asking for it, and she eventually quit her business and worked full time creating what is today called Liquid Paper.

A few years ago, she sold her company to Gillette Corporation for 47 million dollars.

Customers for Life

The highest paid salespeople and the most profitable companies have the best reputation for customer service.

You learn a series of low-cost, no-cost ways to get customers to buy from you, buy again, and tell their friends.

Look for Solutions

Find a problem and solve it.

Find a problem that everybody’s got and see if you can’t come up with a solution for it.

Find a way to supply a product or a service better, cheaper, faster or easier.

Clemmons Wilson saw that there was a need for hotels that could accommodate families that were traveling, and he started Holiday Inns.

And Holiday Inns has now become one of the most successful hotel chains in the world.

Focus On Your Customer

Here’s the key to success in business.

Become obsessed with your customer.

Fixated on your customer.

Think of the customer.

Think of what the customer wants, what the customer needs.

What the customer will pay for, what the customer’s problems are.

Thomas J. Watson, Senior, the founder of IBM, taught his people and built his company on this principle.

See yourself as working for the customer.

Once you’ve come up with a product or an idea, then start to invest your time, talent and energy instead of your money, to get started.

The Source of Most Great Fortunes

Remember this, most great fortunes in America were started with an idea and with personal efforts.

Most great fortunes were started with the sale of personal services.

This is called sweat equity. In other words, instead of cash equity, put in sweat equity.

Put in the sweat of your brow to begin your business.

You can learn valuable lessons operating on a small scale.

Action Exercises

Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action:

First, find a need and fill it.

Look around you and search for needs that people have for products or services that are not being met.

One small idea is enough to start you on the way to business success.

Second, find a problem and solve it.

Look around you for problems that you or other people have that are not yet being solved.

Look for solutions that nobody has thought of and give them a try.

One good solution could change the whole direction of your life.

Practice the ABC Method

2010-03-18T20:07:00.000-07:00

by Brian Tracy on Mar 18, 2010

"The first law of success is concentration - to bend all the energies to one point, and to go directly to that point, looking neither to the right or to the left." –William Mathews

The more thought you invest in planning and setting priorities before you begin, the more important things you will do and the faster you will get them done once you get started.

The more important and valuable the task is to you, the more you will be motivated to overcome procrastination and launch yourself into the job.

A Simple and Powerful Technique

The ABC Method is a powerful priority setting technique that you can use every single day.

This technique is so simple and effective that it can, all by itself, make you one of the most efficient and effective people in your field.

The power of this technique lies in its simplicity.

Here’s how it works: You start with a list of everything you have to do for the coming day.

Think on paper.

You then place an A, B, or C before each item on your list before you begin the first task.

Determine Your Top Priorities

An "A" item is defined as something that is very important.

This is something that you must do.

This is a task for which there can be serious consequences if you do it or fail to do it, like visiting a key customer or finishing a report for your boss that she needs for an upcoming board meeting.

These are the frogs of your life.

If you have more than one "A" task, you prioritize these tasks by writing A-1, A-2, A-3, and so on in front of each item.

Your A-1 task is your biggest, ugliest frog of all.

Decide on Your Secondary Tasks

A "B" item is defined as a task that you should do.

But it only has mild consequences.

These are the tadpoles of your work life.

This means that someone may be unhappy or inconvenienced if you don’t do it, but it is nowhere as important as an "A" task.

Returning an unimportant telephone message or reviewing your email would be a "B" task.

The rule is that you should never do a "B" task when there is an "A" task left undone.

You should never be distracted by a tadpole when there is a big frog sitting there waiting to be eaten.

Analyze the Consequences of Doing It

A "C" task is defined as something that would be nice to do, but for which there are no consequences at all, whether you do it or not.

"C" tasks include phoning a friend, having coffee or lunch with a coworker or completing some personal business during work hours.

This sort of activity has no affect at all on your work life.

After you have applied the ABC Method to your list, you will now be completely organized and ready to get more important things done faster.

Start on Your A-1 Task

The key to making this ABC Method work is for you to now discipline yourself to start immediately on your "A-1" task and then stay at it until it is complete.

Use your willpower to get going and stay going on this one job, the most important single task you could possibly be doing.

Eat the whole frog and don’t stop until its finished completely.

Your ability to think through, analyze your work list and determine your "A-1" task is the springboard to higher levels of accomplishment, and greater self-esteem, self-respect and personal pride.

When you develop the habit of concentrating on your "A-1," most important activity, you will start getting more done than any two or three people around you.

Action Exercises

Review you work list right now and put an A, B, or C next to each task or activity.

Select your A-1 job or project and begin on it immediately.

Discipline yourself to do nothing else until this one job is complete.

Practice this ABC Method every day and on every work or project list, before you begin work, for the next month.

By that time, you will have developed the habit of setting and working on your highest priority tasks and your future will be assured!

CREATE LARGE CHUNKS OF TIME

2010-03-15T20:13:00.000-07:00

by Brian Tracy on Mar 15, 2010

This strategy requires a commitment from you to work at scheduled times on large tasks.

Most of the really important work you do requires large chunks of unbroken time to complete.

Your ability to create and carve out these blocks of high value, highly productive time, is central to your ability to make a significant contribution to your work and to your life.

Thoughtfulness may be defined as a careful concern for the secondary consequences of each decision and each action.

This is the essence of strategic thinking.

Start Immediately on Number One

Successful salespeople set aside a specific time period each day to phone prospects.

Rather than procrastinating or delaying on a task that they don’t particularly like, they resolve that they will phone for one solid hour between 10 and 11 AM and they then discipline themselves to follow through on their resolutions.

Many business executives set aside a specific time each day to call customers directly to get feedback.

Create Specific Amounts of Time

Some people allocate specific 30-60 minute time periods each day for exercise.

Many people read in the great books 15 minutes each night before retiring.

In this way, over time, they eventually read dozens of the best books ever written.

The key to the success of this method of working in specific time segments is for you to plan your day in advance and specifically schedule a fixed time period for a particular activity or task.

You make work appointments with yourself and then discipline yourself to keep them.

You set aside thirty, sixty and ninety minute time segments that you use to work on and complete important tasks.

Create Preplanned Periods

Many highly productive people schedule specific activities in preplanned time slots all day long.

These people build their work lives around accomplishing key tasks one at a time.

As a result, they become more and more productive and eventually produce two times, three times and five times as much as the average person.

Action Exercises

First, organize each day to create large chunks of time you can use for key task completion.

Second, make a written appointment with yourself to work on a key task at a specific time

THREE KEYS TO PERSONAL POWER

2010-03-11T21:43:00.001-07:00

by Brian Tracy on Mar 11, 2010

There are three personality powers that top leaders use to increase their personal power and influence.

Your Emotions Are Contagious

The first power you can develop is enthusiasm.

The more excited you are about accomplishing something that is important to you, the more excited others will be about helping you to do it.

The fact is that emotions are contagious.

The more passion you have for your life and your activities, the more charisma you will possess, and the more cooperation you will gain from others.

Every great man or woman that has been totally committed to a noble cause, as a result, has attracted the support and encouragement of others in many cases, thousands or millions of others.

The Key to Charisma

The second personality power that you can develop is expertise, or competence.

The more knowledgeable you are perceived to be in your field, the more charisma you will have among those who respect and admire that knowledge because of the impact it can have on their lives.

This is also the power of excellence, of being recognized by others as an outstanding performer in your field.

Men and women who do their jobs extremely well and who are recognized for the quality of their work are those who naturally attract the help and support of others.

They have charisma.

Prepare Thoroughly for Every Event

The third power of personality that gives you charisma in the eyes of others is thorough preparation, detailed preparation, prior to undertaking any significant task.

Whether you are calling on a prospect, meeting with your boss, giving a public talk or making any other kind of presentation, when you are well-prepared, it becomes clear to everyone.

The careers of many young people are put onto the fast track as a result of their coming to an important meeting after having done all their homework.

Get on Top of Your Subject

Whether it takes you hours or even days, if an upcoming meeting or interaction is important, take the time to get on top of your subject.

Be so thoroughly prepared that nothing can faze you.

Think through and consider every possibility and every ramification.

Often, this effort to be fully prepared will do more to generate the respect of others than anything else you can do.

Keep Good Notes

Remember that the power is always on the side of the person who has done the most preparation and has the best notes.

Everything counts.

Leave nothing to chance.

When you do something related to your work or career, take the time to do it right the first time.

You are a work in progress.

You are always growing and improving.

Your job is to become the very best leader you can be, and you can - with regular and persistent practice of these personality powers.

Action Exercises

Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, get excited about your goals and your work if you want others to be excited.

Express your belief and commitment to others at every opportunity.

Second, dedicate yourself to a lifelong process of getting better and better at what you do.

Prepare thoroughly for every event.

Set an example in everything you do.

SENSE and NONSENSE

2010-03-08T22:42:00.000-07:00

by Brian Tracy on Mar 14 2008

Why it was that some countries and some parts of countries were more successful economically than others.

Many years ago, I began studying economics.

I wanted to know why it was that some countries and some parts of countries were more successful economically than others.

Before my study was finished, I had spent more than 4,000 hours and assembled a vast library of books on the subject of economics.

I attended conferences on business economics and national economics, and eventually got an MBA degree in which I had to study both microeconomics and macroeconomics.

I finally learned a little bit about the subject.

The bottom line is simple: incentives!

Khrushchev once said, “Call them what you want, it is incentives that moves people to action.”

In every country, and every part of every country, wherever you create incentives for saving, investment and productive business activity, you have prosperity, growth, job opportunities and hope for the future.

Wherever you create dis-incentives, in the form of higher taxes, regulations, government control, corruption, favoritism and political trade-offs, you decrease prosperity.

In the states that have the highest taxes and regulations on business, you have the highest rates of unemployment and the lowest rates of income increase.

In the policy silly season that we are experiencing right now, you have two major schools of thought.

One school of though says that the key to prosperity is to punish businesses through taxes and regulations as much as possible.

For example, oil companies invest tens of billions of dollars in drilling oil fields, building pipelines, leasing tanker ships, building refineries in the US, building pipelines throughout the US to get gasoline to various places, and then delivering the gasoline to your local station.

For this, they charge less than a bottle of water that the driver purchases at the convenience store per gallon of gasoline.

Oil companies earn an average of 7% on gross sales.

Now, congress wants to pass an 18 billion dollar tax on all companies to punish them for their activities.

In economics today, you have the “Something for something party” vs. the “Something for nothing party.”

One party offers to give endless amounts of free money to voters if they will support them in November.

The other party says that the only way that you can become prosperous is by producing something of value and selling it at a profit.

The great tragedy in politics is that most politicians have never worked in a private business, never started or built a private business, and never made a payroll.

They know nothing about how business functions.

This is why the average politician in Washington, or in the States, is convinced that businesses earn an average of 50% profit on sales.

They are living in a cloud coo-coo world completely divorced from reality.

The fact is that businesses create all wealth.

Businesses create all employment.

Businesses pay all taxes.

When governments place a tax on businesses, the businesses can do several things.

They can pay the tax, and pass the costs on to their customers.

They can pay the tax and reduce the wages, benefits and incentives for their employees by a similar amount.

Or they can move away to a place where taxes are lower. They can even shut down, as many large businesses have been forced to do.

But businesses are merely tax collectors for the welfare state.

Coming back to the subject of incentives, there is only one number that counts in our economy: The rate of new business formation.

Businesses collapse, merge, or shut down at a rate of 6% to 7% per year.

Therefore, there must be new businesses being created at a rate of 7% to 8% per year or more, for the economy to remain stable.

This is an economic number that has never changed.

Wherever state or country creates a large number of incentives for new businesses to start up, new jobs are created, new wealth is created, prosperity and opportunity are made available to more people, and the country grows.

When you look at the political policy and statements made by people running for office, simply ask this question,

If these policies are enacted, will this increase the incentives to start new businesses.

Will it increase the incentives for savings, investments and the risks necessary to create economic opportunity?”

By the way, whenever there is an election, the out party always claims that the economy is in terrible shape.

Most American elections are determined by the state of the economy at the time of the election.

If you want to get elected, offering change of some kind, you must declare loudly that the situation is terrible.

If your friends in the newspapers take up the cry, they will also say, day and night, that the economy is in terrible shape.

We need new leaders.

Vote for the other guy.

Don’t be taken in.

In the final analysis, government cannot create jobs.

Government cannot create prosperity.

Government can only redistribute wealth by taxing the people who are producing it and giving it to the people who are not producing it.

When governments redistribute wealth, they punish the successful and the productive, and they reward the unsuccessful and the unproductive.

They reverse the system of incentives in a very negative way.

All that a government can do is make it more attractive or less attractive for new business start ups.

That’s all you need to know.

I’ll talk to you again soon.

BE AN OPTIMIST AT ALL TIMES

2010-03-04T20:31:00.000-07:00

Be An Optimist at All Times
Posted by Brian Tracy on Mar 4, 2010

Everyone wants to be physically healthy.

You want to be mentally healthy as well.

The true measure of "mental fitness" is how optimistic you are about yourself and your life.

In this newsletter, you learn how to control your thinking in very specific ways so that you feel terrific about yourself and your situation, no matter what happens.

Control Your Reactions and Responses

There are three basic differences in the reactions of optimists and pessimists.

The first difference is that the optimist sees a setback as temporary, while the pessimist sees it as permanent.

The optimist sees an unfortunate event, such as an order that falls through or a sales call that fails, as a temporary event, something that is limited in time and that has no real impact on the future.

The pessimist, on the other hand, sees negative events as permanent, as part of life and destiny.

Isolate the Incident

The second difference between the optimist and the pessimist is that the optimist sees difficulties as specific, while the pessimist sees them as pervasive.

This means that when things go wrong for the optimist, he looks at the event as an isolated incident largely disconnected from other things that are going on in his life.

See Setbacks as Temporary Events

For example, if something you were counting on failed to materialize and you interpreted it to yourself as being an unfortunate event, but something that happens in the course of life and business, you would be reacting like an optimist.

The pessimist, on the other hand, sees disappointments as being pervasive. That is, to him they are indications of a problem or shortcoming that pervades every area of life.

Don’t Take Failure Personally

The third difference between optimists and pessimists is that optimists see events as external, while pessimists interpret events as personal.

When things go wrong, the optimist will tend to see the setback as resulting from external factors over which one has little control.

If the optimist is cut off in traffic, for example, instead of getting angry or upset, he will simply downgrade the importance of the event by saying something like, "Oh, well, I guess that person is just having a bad day."

The pessimist on the other hand, has a tendency to take everything personally.

If the pessimist is cut off in traffic, he will react as though the other driver has deliberately acted to upset and frustrate him.

Remain Calm and Objective

The hallmark of the fully mature, fully functioning, self-actualizing personality is the ability to be objective and unemotional when caught up in the inevitable storms of daily life.

The superior person has the ability to continue talking to himself in a positive and optimistic way, keeping his mind calm, clear and completely under control.

The mature personality is more relaxed and aware and capable of interpreting events more realistically and less emotionally than is the immature personality.

As a result, the mature person exerts a far greater sense of control and influence over his environment, and is far less likely to be angry, upset, or distracted.

Take the Long View

Look upon the inevitable setbacks that you face as being temporary, specific and external.

View the negative situation as a single event that is not connected to other potential events and that is caused largely by external factors over which you can have little control.

Simply refuse to see the event as being in any way permanent, pervasive or indicative of personal incompetence of inability.

Resolve to think like an optimist, no matter what happens.

You may not be able to control events but you can control the way you react to them.

Action Exercises

Now, here are three actions you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, remind yourself continually that setbacks are only temporary, they will soon be past and nothing is as serious as you think it is.

Second, look upon each problem as a specific event, not connected to other events and not indicative of a pattern of any kind.

Deal with it and get on with your life.

Third, recognize that when things go wrong, they are usually caused by a variety of external events.

Say to yourself, "What can’t be cured must be endured," and then get back to thinking about your goals.

MAKING A BUSINESS MOVIE

2010-03-02T20:32:00.000-07:00

by Brian Tracy on Mar 3, 2010

Everything worthwhile is achieved by a variety of people coming together to perform a variety of jobs, all of which are coordinated and sequenced together to achieve a final result.

Today, this model of the virtual corporation or the virtual team is becoming the key to success in both individual and business life.

Assembling Your Team

A perfect example of the virtual project team would be the video crew that makes my video training programs.

This crew consists of about 10 people, most of whom know each other but all of whom work independently from each other.

Selection is the Key to Success

This is the way this type of team comes together.

When I decide to create a training program, I negotiate an agreement for the finished product with a person who becomes the project’s executive producer.

The executive producer knows where to find the key people to make up the team.

And here is an important point: selection is 95 percent of success in management.

Look for Previous Experience

For you to select the right people, you must be clear about the key result areas and the standards of job performance.

Most people judge themselves on the basis of what they feel they are capable of doing in the future, but you must only judge people based on what they have actually accomplished in the past.

The inability to choose people well for a team can lead to under-achievement and failure.

Know Who You Need

The executive producer of the film crew will then begin hiring the individual members of the video shooting team.

First, he or she will hire three cameramen, who come complete with state-of-the-art camera equipment that they either own or rent for this project.

Then there will be lighting and sound specialists.

A combination carpenter and designer will be hired to concept and build the set for the video project.

A floor director will be selected who will coordinate the activities of the cameramen, the people appearing in the video shoot, the sound person, the light person, and the designer.

Select the Bit Players Carefully

In addition to these people, there will be an editor and mixer who will sit in the video sound booth and mix the project as it is shot and edit it afterwards.

Finally, there will be a make-up specialist who prepares each of the performers for the shoot.

Field Your Team

This makes for a total of 10 people, all specialists who are brought together to focus on the production of a single video project.

The actual shoot itself can take anywhere from two hours to two weeks.

When it is over and everyone has done their jobs, the crew shakes hands and disperses in different directions, going on to join other crews for other video shoots under other circumstances.

Continually Revise Team Responsibilities

In corporations today, the continuous formation and dissolution of these "virtual teams" is becoming the norm for achieving goals.

People who specialize in their fields are brought together under a team leader to perform a function or do a job and then disperse to become members of other teams performing other functions.

It is into this constant formation and reformation of teams that you must integrate yourself so that you can maximize your capacity to make a significant contribution wherever you work.

These same principles apply to you and to bringing together several people to complete a project.

Action Exercises

Now, here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, think through the project in terms of the specific jobs to be done and the specific skills that people will require to do those jobs. Select your team on this basis.

Second, take time to discuss and agree on the role and expected contribution from each person.

Be absolutely clear with everyone about your final goal or desired result.

The Key to Happiness

2010-02-28T19:37:00.000-07:00

by Brian Tracy
Mar 1, 2010

Your ability to achieve your own happiness is the key measure of your success, of how well you are doing as a person.

You learn the key to happiness that has been the same through all of history.

You learn how to dispel the two myths that may be holding you back and how to achieve more happiness in everything you do.

Dedicate Yourself to Your Best Talents

The key to happiness is this: dedicate yourself to the development of your natural talents and abilities by doing what you love to do, and doing it better and better in the service of a cause that is greater than yourself.

This is a big statement and a big commitment.

Being happy requires that you define your life in your own terms and then throw your whole heart into living your life to the fullest.

In a way, happiness requires that you be perfectly selfish in order to develop yourself to a point where you can be unselfish for the rest of your life.

Please Yourself First

In Edmond Rostand’s play Cyrano de Bergerac, Cyrano is asked why he is so intensely individualistic and unconcerned with the opinions and judgments of others.

He replies with these wonderful words: "I am what I am because early in life I decided that I would please at least myself in all things."

Your happiness likewise depends upon your ability to please at least yourself in all things.

You can be happy only when you are living your life in the very best way possible.

No one can define happiness for you.

Only you know what makes you happy.

Happiness is an inside job.

Your Happiness is Up to You

The biggest myth about happiness is when people say that it is not legitimate or correct for you to put your happiness ahead of everyone else’s.

Throughout my life, I’ve met people who have said that it is more important to make other people happy than it is to make yourself happy.

This is nonsense.

The fact is that you can’t give away to anyone else what you don’t have for yourself.

Just as you can’t give money to the poor if you don’t have any, you can’t make someone else happy if you yourself are miserable.

The very best way to assure the happiness of others is to be happy yourself and then to share your happiness with them.

Suffering and self-sacrifice merely depress and discourage other people.

If you want to make others happy, start by living the kind of life and doing the kind of things that make you happy.

Action Exercises

Here are three steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, define for yourself the activities that you really love and enjoy, at home and work, and then organize your life so you do more of them.

Second, believe in yourself and trust your own feelings.

Then, please at least yourself in all things.

Third, determine what it is that you do that brings the most happiness to others and then organize your life so that you can do more of it.

Simplify Your Life