Posted by Brian Tracy on Mar 25, 2008
“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 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!
Eat That Frog 2nd Edition
Tags: Leadership Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Mar 17, 2008
This strategy requires a commitment from you to work at scheduled times on large tasks.
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
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
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.
Time Management For Results
Tags: Leadership Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Mar 14, 2008
There are three personality powers that top leaders use to increase their personal power and influence.
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 has been totally committed to a noble cause and, 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.
The Science of Self- Conficence training kit
Tags: Personal Success
Posted 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.
Brian Tracy
Tags: Brian's Words of Wisdom
Posted by Brian Tracy on Mar 14, 2008
Everyone wants to be physically healthy. You want to be mentally healthy as well.
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.
Simplify Your Life
Tags: Business Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Mar 4, 2008
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.
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.
21 Great Ways to Become an Outstanding Manager
Tags: Leadership Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Mar 4, 2008
Your ability to achieve your own happiness is the key measure of your success, of how well you are doing as a person.
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
Tags: Personal Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Mar 4, 2008
Eat that frog! Every bit of planning, prioritizing and organizing comes down to this simple concept.
Your ability to select your most important task, to begin it and then to concentrate on it single mindedly until it is complete is the key to high levels of performance and personal productivity.
The Requirement for Every Great Achievement
Every great achievement of mankind has been preceded by a long period of hard, concentrated work until the job was done. Single handling requires that once you begin, you keep working at the task, without diversion or distraction, until the job is 100% complete. You keep urging yourself onward by repeating the words “Back to work!” over and over whenever you are tempted to stop or do something else.
Reduce Your Time By 50%
By concentrating single mindedly on your most important task, you can reduce the time required to complete it by 50% or more.
It has been estimated that the tendency to start and stop a task, to pick it up, put it down and come back to it can increase the time necessary to complete the task by as much as 500%.
Each time you return to the task, you have to familiarize yourself with where you were when you stopped and what you still have to do. You have to overcome inertia and get yourself going again. You have to develop momentum and get into a productive work rhythm.
Develop Energy and Enthusiasm
But when you prepare thoroughly and then begin, refusing to stop or turn aside until the job is done, you develop energy, enthusiasm and motivation. You get better and better and more productive. You work faster and more effectively.
Never Waste Time
The truth is that once you have decided on your number one task, anything else that you do other than that is a relative waste of time. Any other activity is just not as valuable or as important as this job, based on your own priorities.
Action Exercises
Eat That Frog! Take action! Resolve today to select the most important task or project that you could complete and then launch into it immediately.
Once you start your most important task, discipline yourself to persevere without diversion or distraction until it is 100% complete. See it as a “test” to determine whether you are the kind of person who can make a decision to complete something and then carry it out. Once you begin, refuse to stop until the job is finished.
Eat That Frog 2nd Edition
Tags: Leadership Success
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