Posted by Brian Tracy on Jan 29, 2007
What difference would it make in your life if you had an absolutely unshakable confidence in your ability to achieve anything you really put your mind to?
Identify Your Biggest Dream
A young woman wrote to me recently, telling me that her whole life had taken a different turn since she heard me ask the question, “What one great thing would you dare to dream if you knew you could not fail?”
She wrote that, up to that time, this was a question she had never even dared to consider, but now, she thought of nothing else. She had realized, in a great, blinding flash of clarity, that the main thing separating her from her hopes and dreams was the belief in her ability to achieve them.
Most of us are like this for most of our lives. There are many things that we want to be, and have and do, but we hold back. We are unsure because we lack the confidence necessary to step out in faith in the direction of our dreams.
Determine What You Really Want
Just think: What difference would it make in your life if you had an absolutely unshakable confidence in your ability to achieve anything you really put your mind to? What would you want and wish and hope for? What would you dare to dream if you believed in yourself with such deep conviction that you had no fears of failure whatsoever?
Be True to Yourself
The key is to be true to yourself, to be true to the very best that is in you, and to live your life consistent with your highest values and aspirations.
Take some time to think about who you are and what you believe in and what is important to you. Decide that you will never compromise your integrity by trying to be or say or feel something that is not true for you.
Have the courage to accept yourself as you really are-not as you might be, or as someone else thinks you should be-and know that, taking everything into consideration, you are a pretty good person.
Make A Plan to Achieve It
Being true to yourself means knowing exactly what you want and having a plan to achieve it. Lasting self-confidence comes when you absolutely know that you have the capacity to get from where you are to wherever you want to go. You are behind the wheel of your life. You are the architect of your destiny and the master of your fate.
Use the "Act As If" Principle
Act as though it were impossible to fail. Act as though you already had a high level of self-confidence. And continually ask yourself, “What one great thing would I dare to dream if I knew I could not fail?” Whatever your answer, you can have it if you can dream it, and if you have the self-confidence to go out and get it.
Action Exercises
Here are three steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, resolve to step out in faith in the direction of your dreams; just do it!
Second, ask yourself, “What one great thing would I dare to dream if I knew I could not fail?”
Third, be true to yourself, to the very best that is in you. Never compromise!
Click here for more information on The Science of Self-Confidence.
Tags: Personal Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Jan 15, 2007
Only the truly competent individual can be free of politics in an organization. When you’re really good at what you do, you can rise above politics.
It’s the mediocrities at work who have to play games and every study shows that although they sometimes succeed in the short-term, they invariably fail when everyone figures them out.
Do What You Have To Do
Select your work carefully and if you don’t love what you’re doing enough to want to be the best at it, get out! Flee from the boring or unsatisfying job as you would from a burning building. Working at something you don’t care about is the very best way to waste your life. Remember, this life is not a rehearsal for something else.
Look for Pay for Performance
One key to getting onto the fast-track is for you to work for the right company and the right boss. The right company is one that respects its people and practices pay for performance. The right company is dynamic, growing, open to new ideas, and full of opportunities for people with ambition and initiative.
How To Make Progress
A woman spoke to me at a seminar recently and reminded me that she had asked me a question at a seminar about two years ago. She had told me that she was very ambitious and hard-working but that she wasn’t making any progress in the large company where she worked. She felt it was because most of the senior executives were men in their fifties and sixties and that women had a hard time getting into positions of responsibility. What could she do?
Change Jobs When Necessary
I told her quite frankly that there was nothing she could do. The senior executives and the company were not going to change. If she was really as capable as she said, I told her to find a job with a young, growing company that wouldn’t care whether she was a woman as long as she could do the job.
A Success Story
She told me that she had followed my advice, quit her job, much to the disapproval of her co-workers, and found a job with a small growing company - and it was exactly as I had said. She had been promoted twice in the last 14 months and was already earning 40% more than her best year with her previous company.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do to assure that you are in the right position.
First, make sure that you really enjoy your work and that you do it well. You will never be successful at a job that you don’t like.
Second, be sure that there are lots of opportunities for you to grow, develop and advance in your company. Your future is too valuable to waste where there is no future.
Tags: Personal Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Jan 15, 2007
There are two techniques that can be useful in developing the foresight that is a hallmark of effective leaders.
Practice Crisis Anticipation
The first is called “crisis anticipation” and it involves looking ahead as far as you can and asking, “What could possibly change or go wrong that would threaten our survival?”
Think About The Worst Possible Event
For example, what would you do if interest rates doubled, as they have done in the past? What if your best-selling product, or service, suddenly stopped selling, as often happens in high-tech industries in times of rapid change. What if a key executive died unexpectedly or your offices with all your records were destroyed by fire? What if you lost your key customer or major source of revenues?
These and other questions can only be asked and considered by the leader, the person ultimately charged with the overall responsibility for results. The failure to think through possible crises in advance can open you and others to fear, panic and confusion if something goes wrong.
Plan For A Crisis
The Greek philosopher Epictetus said, “Circumstances do not make the man; they merely reveal him to himself.” A crisis is the genuine test of courage and effectiveness in a leader. You can greatly improve your abilities to function in a crisis situation by thinking it through in advance and by developing contingency plans - just in case.
Determine What Can Go Wrong
The second technique is called the “master method” of decision making. It involves asking, “What is the worst possible thing that can go wrong in this situation?” Once you’ve asked the questions, you must decide whether or not you can live with those consequences. For example, in an investment, or new product introduction, or new promotion, the worst possible outcome may be that you will lose every penny. Can you live with that? Can the company survive? There are many different types of decisions and one of them is the decision you cannot afford to make. Most big failures result because someone made a commitment of resources without carefully considering the worst possible outcome.
Do What Billionaire’s Do
John Paul Getty, the great oil billionaire said that one of his secrets of success was to always determine the worst thing that could happen in any investment - and then make sure it didn’t happen.
Action Exercises
Here are two ways to apply these techniques to your own situation:
First, make a list of the three worst things that could happen to your business or your department. Then develop a strategy to deal with these situations if they occur.
Second, practice “crisis anticipation” in each key area of your life. Look into the future and imagine a major setback. What would you do if they happened?
Tags: Leadership Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Jan 10, 2007
The key to making the sale is to discover the gaps between where the prospect is now and where they could be by using your product or service.
Identify the Real Need of the Prospect
As a salesperson, you are in the business of gap analysis. You are a "problem detective." Your job, somewhat like a police inspector searching for suspects, is to find problems for which your product or service is the ideal solution. In a way, your product or service is a key. You make calls looking for locks that your key will open. In the prospecting phase, you insert the key and find that it fits. In the presenting phase, you twist the key and open the lock. In the closing phase, you turn the handle and push the door open.
Use Questions As Sales Tools
Like a verbal detective, the tools of your trade are questions. You use them to get appointments, uncover problems, and discover gaps between where the prospect is now and where the prospect could be by using your product or service. You then show the prospect how much better his situation could be by owning and enjoying what you are selling.
Clarify the Need
There is an old saying, "No need? No presentation!" Before you begin your presentation, it must be clear to the prospect that there is a distance between where he is and where he could be. The prospect must recognize that he has a need that is unsatisfied or a problem that is unsolved. The prospect must also feel that the gap between the real and the ideal is large enough to warrant taking action.
Build Buying Desire
Buying desire is in direct proportion to the intensity of the buyer’s need on the one hand, and to the clarity of the solution represented by your product or service on the other. This process of taking the prospect from cold to luke warm to hot is accomplished by the skillful use of questions that uncover the gap and then expand it to the point where the customer is ready to take buying action.
Putting These Ideas Into Action
Now, here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, ask good questions aimed at uncovering the real need or problem the customer has. Listen attentively to the answers. Never assume that you know already.
Second, the larger the gap the customer sees between where he is today and where he could be by using your product or service, the greater is his desire to buy. Show him continually the size of this gap.
Tags: Sales Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Jan 4, 2007
This simple seven step process will give you the tools you need to succeed.
Many businesspeople achieve their greatest successes in unexpected areas. They begin a business and then they find that it isn’t as profitable as they had anticipated, so they change direction, using their experience and their momentum, and strike paydirt in something else. The most important thing is to begin. To take action. To move forward one step at a time, learning and growing as you go. There is enough information available in virtually every field for you to become knowledgeable enough to achieve success. But action is necessary.
The Two Parts of Business Success
Success author Orison Swett Marden once wrote, the first part of success is get-to-it-ivness. The second part is stick-to-it-iveness. Every business beginning requires an act of faith and courage, a bold leap into the unknown. Only one in ten people who want to start their own businesses ever develop enough courage to begin and enough persistence to continue. Get-to-it-iveness. And stick-to-it-iveness. The fear of failure, more than anything else, holds people back. It paralyzes action. And it makes failure inevitable.
Begin With A Dream
Fortunately, even if you know nothing about business, you can begin with a dream, a castle in the air, and then build a foundation under it.
Seven Simple Steps
The starting point of many great fortunes has been these seven simple steps. Number one, set a goal and back it with a burning desire. Number two, begin accumulating capital with a regular savings program. Nothing else is possible without this. You cannot move forward until you start a savings program.
Use Your Current Job As A Springboard
Number three, use your current job as a springboard to later success. Learn while you earn. Take the long view. Number four, experiment in business on a limited scale so you can learn the key abilities necessary for success. Number five, search for problems, needs unmet, products or services you can supply of good quality at reasonable prices.
Read Everything You Can Find
Number six, read everything you can find on your chosen field. Remain flexible. Be willing to change your mind if you get different information. And number seven, implement your plans with courage and persistence. Have complete faith in your ability to succeed and never, never give up.
Action Exercises
Now, here are two actions you can take immediately to start moving toward entrepreneurial success:
First, set a goal, make a plan and then launch your plan. Get started. Do something. Begin on a small scale with limited risk and investment but get going!
Second, resolve that, no matter what happens, you will never, never give up until you are successful. Before you accomplish anything worthwhile, you will have to pass the persistence test. And the test will come far sooner than you imagine.
Tags: Business Success
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