Posted by Brian Tracy on Jul 31, 2008
How to set standards for excellence and back them with total integrity.
A Commitment to Excellence
Leaders have specific responsibilities and must fulfill certain requirements. One requirement of leadership is the ability to choose an area of excellence. Just as a good general chooses the terrain on which to do battle, an excellent leader chooses the area in which he and others are going to do an outstanding job. The commitment to excellence is one of the most powerful of all motivators. All leaders who change people and organizations are enthusiastic about achieving excellence in a particular area.
Be the Best!
The most motivational vision you can have for yourself and others is to "Be the best!" Many people don’t yet realize that excellent performance in serving other people is an absolute, basic essential for survival in the economy of the future. Many individuals and companies still adhere to the idea that as long as they are no worse than anyone else, they can remain in business. That is just plain silly! It is prehistoric thinking. We are now in the age of excellence. Customers assume that they will get excellent quality, and if they don’t, they will go to your competitors so fast, people’s heads will spin.
Have A Vision of High Standards
As a leader, your job is to be excellent at what you do, to be the best in your chosen field of endeavor. Your job is to have a vision of high standards in serving people. You not only exemplify excellence in your own behavior, but you also translate it to others so that they, too, become committed to this vision.
This is the key to servant leadership. It is the commitment to doing work of the highest quality in the service of other people, both inside and outside the organization. Leadership today requires an equal focus on the people who must do the job, on the one hand, and the people who are expected to benefit from the job, on the other.
Learn the secrets of motivation, communication and team building with Masterful Management!
The Most Respected Quality
The second quality, which is perhaps the single most respected quality of leaders, is integrity. Integrity is complete, unflinching honesty with regard to everything that you say and do. Integrity underlies all the other qualities. Your measure of integrity is determined by how honest you are in the critical areas of your life.
Integrity means this: When someone asks you at the end of the day, "Did you do your very best?" you can look him in the eye and say, "Yes!" Integrity means this: When someone asks you if you could have done it better, you can honestly say, "No, I did everything I possibly could."
Integrity means that you, as a leader, admit your shortcomings. It means that you work to develop your strengths and compensate for your weaknesses. Integrity means that you tell the truth, and that you live the truth in everything that you do and in all your relationships. Integrity means that you deal straightforwardly with people and situations and that you do not compromise what you believe to be true.
Action Exercises
Now, here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, identify the area of your work where excellent performance can contribute the very most to productivity and profits. Focus all your efforts in this area.
Second, do your very best on every task. Imagine that everyone is watching even when no one is watching. Imagine that everyone in your company was going to do their work exactly the way you do yours.
Never compromise your standards!
Masterful Management!
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Tags: Business Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Jul 28, 2008
Have Everything At Hand
One of the best ways for you to overcome procrastination and get more things done faster is for you to have everything you need at hand before you begin. When you are fully prepared, you are like a cocked gun or an archer with an arrow pulled back taut in the bow. You just need one small mental push to get started on your highest value tasks.
Clear Your Workspace
Begin by clearing off your desk or workspace so that you only have one task in front of you. If necessary, put everything on the floor or on the table behind you. Gather all the information, reports, details, papers, and work materials that you will require to complete the job. Have them at hand so you can reach them without getting up or moving. Be sure that you have all writing materials, computer disks, access codes, email addresses and everything else you need to start and continue working until the job is done.
Learn how to get more done in less time, set priorities, organize your work with 21 Great Ways to Manage Your Time and Double Your Productivity.
Make It Comfortable
Set up your work area so that it is comfortable, attractive and conducive to working for long periods. Especially, make sure that you have a comfortable chair that supports your back and allows your feet to sit flat on the floor.
The most productive people take the time to create a work area where they enjoy spending time. The cleaner and neater your work area before you begin, the easier it is for you to get started and keep going.
Assume The Position
When you sit down, with everything in front of you, ready to go, assume the body language of high performance. Sit up straight, sit forward and away from the back of the chair. Carry yourself as though you were an efficient, effective high performing personality. Then, pick up the first item and say to yourself, "Let’s get to work!" and plunge in. And once you’ve started, keep going until the job is finished.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, take a good look at your desk or office, both at home and at the office. Ask yourself, "What kind of a person works in an environment like that?"
Second, resolve today to clean up your desk and office completely so that you feel effective, efficient and ready to get going each time you sit down to work.
21 Great Ways to Manage Your Time and Double Your Productivity
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Tags: Personal Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Jul 28, 2008
You’ve gone as far as you can with what you now know.
Any progress you make from this moment onward will require that you learn and practice something new.
Commit to Lifelong Learning
One quality of leaders and high achievers in every area seems to be a commitment to ongoing personal and professional development. They look upon themselves as self-made people, as "works in progress." They never become complacent or satisfied. They are always striving toward ever greater heights of knowledge and understanding.
Get to the Top in Five Years
Earl Nightingale said many years ago that one hour per day of study in your chosen field was all it takes. One hour per day of study will put you at the top of your field within three years. Within five years you’ll be a national authority. In seven years, you can be one of the best people in the world at what you do.
Read Everything You Can
Read all you can about your field. Subscribe to the executive book clubs and book summaries. Build your own library of important books in your field. Never be cheap about your education.
Go Through 50 Books Per Year
If you read one hour per day in your field, that will translate into about one book per week. One book per week translates into about 50 books per year. 50 books per year will translate into about 500 books over the next ten years.
Learn how to learn faster, read faster, and remember more with Accelerated Learning Techniques.
Join the Top 1% of Money Earners
If you read only one book per month, that will put you into the top 1% of income earners in our society. But if you read one book per week, 50 books per year, that will make you one of the best educated, smartest, most capable and highest paid people in your field. Regular reading will transform your life completely.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into practice.
First, ask the successful people around you for their best book recommendations. Whatever advice they give you, immediately go out and buy those books, take them home and begin reading for one hour every morning before you start work.
Second, when you read, underline and take notes when you find important ideas that you can use. Implement them immediately. Take action of some kind on good ideas. You will be amazed at the change in your career.
Accelerated Learning Techniques
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Tags: Personal Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Jul 28, 2008
The Most Important Measure of Success
Being respected by others is very important to each of us. A survey done by the Gallup organization found that the most prominent living Americans rated the respect of others as the most important measure of success in life. They worked very hard to earn the respect of their parents, the respect of their spouses and children, the respect of their peers and colleagues, and the respect of mankind at large.
Why You Respect Yourself
It seems that we truly respect ourselves only when we feel that we are respected by others, and we will go to great lengths to earn and keep that respect. When we feel that someone respects us for who we are and what we have accomplished, we tend to be more open to that person’s influence.
Two Things You Can Do
We can do two things to put ourselves in a position to be respected by others. The first is to develop our knowledge of our field. The more people perceive you know about your subject, the more they will respect you. The highest-paid people in almost every field are those who know more than the average people. They are recognized as experts, and they develop what is called "expert power." Because of their superior knowledge, they are looked up to and listened to, and they are much more capable of influencing others to act in a particular way than they would be if their knowledge level were just average.
Learn how to earn the respect and support of others with Leadership: The Critical Difference.
Develop Your Expertise
Another way to put ourselves in a position of being respected by others is to develop your expertise. Expertise is closely tied to knowledge, but it is a little different. Expertise is the ability to do, the ability to perform well in your chosen field. Men and women with expertise are those who practice over and over in whatever they do until they become known far and wide as the very best in their field.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action:
First, study your field in detail. Dedicate at least one hour per day to reading, listening to audio programs, studying to become more and more knowledgeable about what you do.
Second, continually upgrade your knowledge and skills in your field. Identify your weakest important skill and go to work on that.
Knowledge and know-how are the keys to the 21st century.
Leadership: The Critical Difference
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Tags: Leadership Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Jul 28, 2008
Creative thinking can be stimulated by two things; intensely desired goals and pressing problems.
Your creative capacities need something to hone in on and your job is to provide it.
A Continual Stimulus for Ideas
Intensely desired goals, clearly defined with detailed plans for their accomplishment act as a continual stimulus for ideas to achieve them.
Visualize Your Goals
To trigger your imagination, write out a clear description of your ideal end result or goal. Be clear about the goal, be flexible about the process. Think about it, visualize it as realized over and over. Project your mind forward to the picture of the realized goal and then look back to the present.
Define Your Goals Clearly
Think on paper. Make a plan and then work on the plan, updating it, changing it, adding to it as you think of new ways to work toward the goal. The more clearly defined and keenly desired your goals, the more of your natural creativity will be released for goal attainment.
Learn how to focus and concentrate on your highest value activities with The Power of Clarity.
The Proper Approach to Problems
The second stimulant to creativity is pressing problems. The key to idea generation when you face a problem is to approach the problem confidently, expectantly, with the attitude that there exists a logical, practical solution just waiting to be found.
The most creative people have a relaxed attitude of confident expectancy that causes their minds to function in original and imaginative ways.
Diagnose Your Problems Accurately
Define your problems clearly in writing. Accurate diagnosis is half the cure. Sometimes you will find that you are dealing with a "cluster problem," one that is made up of several smaller problems. Your job is to sort them out and then go to work on each one separately.
Break Up the Clusters
In many cluster problems, there is a core issue surrounded by a lot of symptoms. Creative thinking requires that you separate the core issue, and then focus on resolving that before worrying about the smaller problems.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do to stimulate your creativity.
First, be absolutely clear about your goal. Write it down and make a plan to achieve it. Think of different ways you could accomplish it.
Second, define your problems clearly and then make a list of all the possible solutions to your problem. Take action on at least one idea immediately.
The Power of Clarity
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Tags: Business Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Jul 25, 2008
W. Clement Stone once said, “If you cannot save money, then the seeds of greatness are not in you.”
Throughout the history of American enterprise, you’ve heard the words, "work hard and save your money." Work hard and save your money. It is the oldest rule for success in America. It’s so important, as a matter of fact, that W. Clement Stone once said, "If you cannot save money, then the seeds of greatness are not in you."
Saving is a Discipline
Why is it that saving money is so important? Because saving money is a discipline and any discipline affects all other disciplines in your life. If you do not have the discipline to refrain from spending all the money that you earn, then you are not qualified to become wealthy and if you do become wealthy, you’ll not be capable of holding on to it.
The Law of Attraction
A principle with regard to saving your money is the law of attraction. The law of attraction is activated by saved money. Even one dollar saved will start to attract more money. Here’s what I suggest that you do. If you’re really serious about your future, go down and open a savings account. Put as much money as you can into it, even if it’s only ten dollars. And then begin to collect little bits of money, and every week go down and put something into that account.
Learn more about financial success with
The 21 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Money.
Attract More Money Into Your Life
You will find that the more you put in that account, the more you will attract from sources that you cannot now predict. But if you do not begin the savings process, if you don’t begin putting something away towards your financial independence, then nothing will happen to you. The law of attraction just simply won’t work.
Invest Your Money Conservatively
Once you begin to accumulate money, here’s another rule. Invest the money conservatively. Marvin Davis, self-made billionaire, was asked by Forbes Magazine, "How do you account for your financial success?" And he said, "Well, I have two rules for financial investing." He said, "Rule number one is, don’t lose money." He said, whenever I’m tempted, whenever I see an opportunity to invest where there’s a possibility I could lose it all, I just simply refrain from putting the money in. Rule number two is, whenever I get tempted, I refer back to rule number one. Don’t lose money.
Get Rich Slowly
George Classon says, in The Richest Man In Babylon, that the key is to accumulate your funds and then invest them very conservatively. One of the characteristics of self-made millionaires, one of the characteristics of old money in America is that it’s very cautiously, conservatively and prudently invested.
Don’t try to get rich quickly. Concentrate rather on getting rich slowly. If all you do is save ten percent of your earnings, put it away, and let it accumulate at compound interest, that alone will make you wealthy.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do to apply these lessons to your financial life:
First, open a separate savings and investing account today. From this day forward, put every single dollar you can spare into this account and resolve to never touch it or spend it for any reason.
Second, whenever you consider any investment of your savings, remember the rule, "Don’t lose money!" It is better to keep the money working at a low rate of interest than to take the chance of losing it. Be careful. A fool and his money are soon parted.
Learn more about financial success with
The 21 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Money.
Tags: Financial Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Jul 22, 2008
Your mission statement is always written in the present tense, as though you have already become the person that you have described.
It is always positive rather than negative. And it is always personal.
Program Yourself Correctly
Your subconscious mind can only accept your mission statement as a set of commands when you phrase it in the present, positive and personal tenses. "I am an exceptional salesperson," is a perfect example. After every sales call, you should quickly reread your mission statement and ask yourself if your recent behavior was more like the person you want to be, or less? As a top sales performer, you are always comparing your sales activities against a high standard and adjusting your activities upward. You’re continually striving to be better. Every day in every way, you are deliberately working to become more like the ideal person you have envisioned.
Learn how to stand out from your competitors, sell more at higher prices and dominate your market with The Power of Branding.
Determine Your Mission Statement
Your goal is that, a year from today, when one of your customers has lunch with one of your prospects, and your prospect asks your customer to describe you in detail as a salesperson, your customer will recite your business mission statement voluntarily. The way you have treated your customer will have been so exemplary that your customer will describe you in the most glowing of terms.
Compare Yourself Against Yourself
Once you have developed a mission statement like this, you can read it, review it, edit it, and upgrade it regularly. You can add additional qualities to it and more clearly define the qualities you’ve already listed. It becomes your personal credo, your philosophy of life, your statement of beliefs and a guide to your behavior in all your interactions with others. Each day, you can evaluate your behaviors and compare them against the standard that you have set in this statement.
Shape Your Own Personality
Over time, a remarkable thing will happen. As you read and review your personal mission statement, you will find yourself, almost unconsciously, shaping your words and conforming your behaviors so that you are more and more like the ideal person you have defined. People will notice the change in you almost immediately. Over time, you will find that you are actually creating within yourself the kind of character and personality that you most admire in others. You will have become the molder and the shaper of your own personal destiny. 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.
Action Exercises
First, imagine that one of your customers was going to meet with one of your prospects. What would you want him to say about you? How could you behave with your customer to assure that he says these things?
Second, talk to yourself positively all the time. Feed your mind with positive messages that describe your goals and the person you want to be.
The Power of Branding
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Tags: Sales Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Jul 21, 2008
Your goal is to organize your life in such a way that you enjoy a good income, a high standard of living, and that you are the master of your economic destiny rather than a victim of changing economic times.
Contribution is the Key
Your job is an opportunity to contribute a value to your company in excess of your cost. In its simplest terms, your job is as secure as your ability to render value in excess of what it costs to keep you on the payroll. If you want to earn more money at your current job, you have to increase your value, your contribution to the enterprise.
Add Value Every Day
If you want to get a new job, you have to find a way to contribute value to that enterprise. If you want any kind of job security, you must continually work at maintaining and increasing your value in the competitive marketplace.
And here’s a key point. Your education, knowledge, skills and experience all are investments in your ability to contribute a value for which you can be paid. But they are like any other investments. They are highly speculative.
Knowledge and Education Are Sunk Costs
Once you have learned a subject or developed a skill, it is a sunk cost. It is time and money spent that you cannot get back. No employer in the marketplace has any obligation to pay you for it, unless he can use your skill to produce a product or service that people are ready to buy, today.
Prepare For Your Next Job
Whatever job you are doing, you should be preparing for your next job. And the key question is always: Where are the customers? Which businesses and industries are growing in this economy, and which ones are declining?
Where is the Future?
I continually meet people who ask me how they can increase their income when their entire industry is shrinking. I tell them that there are jobs with futures and there are jobs without futures, and they need to get into a field that is expanding, not contracting.
Learn proven strategies and techniques for greater achievement with Create Your Own Future.
Never Be Without A Job
There are three forms of unemployment in America: voluntary, involuntary, and frictional. Voluntary employment exists when a person decides not to work for a certain period of time, or not to accept a particular type of job, hoping that something better will come along. Involuntary unemployment exists when a person is willing and able to work but cannot find a job anywhere. Frictional unemployment is the natural level; this includes the approximately 4 or 5 percent of the working population who are between jobs at any given time.
Three Keys to Lifelong Employment
However, there are always jobs for the creative minority. You never have to be unemployed if you will do one of three things: change the work that you are offering to do, change the place where you are offering to work, or change the amount that you are asking for your services. You should consider one or more of these three strategies whenever you are dissatisfied with your current work situation.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, look around you at your current job and find ways to create added value every day. There’s always something more you can do.
Second, identify the kind of work you want to be doing in the future and then make a plan to develop the knowledge and skills you will require to do it well.
Create Your Own Future
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Tags: Personal Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Jul 21, 2008
One of the most important traits of all motivators at work is consideration.
Employees report that the best managers they ever had were people who cared about them as people and as friends. These managers took the time to ask them questions about their lives, and to listen patiently while they talked about the dilemmas and problems and situations in their families. The more that the employees felt that the boss liked them and respected them, the more empowered and motivated they felt.
Learn how to stay positive, energized, and powerful with The Science of Positive Focus.
Caring is the Key
The flip side of this motivator is the de-motivating feeling that the boss doesn’t care. This is almost invariably expressed in a lack of recognition, a lack of approval, a lack of appreciation and a general failure to pay attention to the employee over time.
Spend Time Listening
Remember, the amount of time that you spend talking to and listening to an employee is a signal to that employee that he or she is important to you and to the company. This is why the very best bosses spend a lot of time walking around and chatting with their employees. They sit with them for lunch and coffee. They invite their comments and encourage open discussion and disagreements about work. They create an environment where people feel that the work belongs to them as well as to the company. In that environment, employees feel good about themselves and more fully committed to doing the job and doing it well.
Become A Positive Person
To empower and motivate your customers, your suppliers, your bankers and so on, you simply need to be a genuine, positive and cheerful person. You develop a positive mental attitude. You be the kind of person from whom, "never is heard a discouraging word." You are easygoing, genial, friendly, patient, tolerant and open minded. You make people feel comfortable being around you.
Emotions Determine Everything
Remember, everyone is primarily emotional. Everything that people do, or refrain from doing, is triggered by their deeper emotions. Your job is to connect with their higher and more positive emotions so they feel so good about you they want to help you and please you in some way.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, get out of your office and go among your friends and coworkers. Ask them about their personal lives and concerns, and then listen carefully to the answer.
Second, resolve to be a genuinely positive person under all circumstances. Be the kind of person people feel happy being around and working for.
The Science of Positive Focus
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Tags: Leadership Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Jul 18, 2008
Eight Keys to MLM Success
If you’re looking at a multi-level marketing opportunity, here are eight key considerations. Look for a multi-level business that has, number one, quality products with a good reputation. Never waste your time trying to sell anything that is not of excellent quality. Quality products are the starting point of your success in business. No successful business can ever be built on an average or mediocre product.
Look for Competitive Prices
Number two, look for a company that has prices that compare favorable with the competition. Remember, nobody’s going to pay more for your product or service if they can get the same or equivalent somewhere else at a lower price. So check the price comparisons.
Demand a Money Back Guarantee
The third thing you look for is a 100 percent unconditional money-back guarantee. In other words, the product must be so good and the company must stand behind it so strongly that they’re willing to give a 100 percent refund guarantee on anything that they sell. That’s a very good rule for starting and building any business.
Carry a Small Inventory
The fourth key in finding a multi-level marketing opportunity is that there should be a small or zero inventory requirement. You should be able to get into a multi-level marketing business with very little money. Not more than a hundred dollars.
Keep Good Records
The fifth requirement is that the company provides prompt delivery and efficient internal bookkeeping. A multi-level marketing business that’s well organized will be able to deliver your products within 24 or 48 hours for you to sell, or deliver to your customers. They’ll also take very good care of the books and give you accurate financial statements each month.
Keep your customers coming back with Customers for Life
Seek a Strong Support Organization
A sixth thing to look for is a strong support organization. This is perhaps as important, if not more important, than anything else. Look for a support organization that will offer you training, that will give you seminars on product knowledge, that will give you motivation, and give you opportunities for personal and business development. Many people who have started with multi-level marketing companies have gone on to be very successful in their own businesses because of the training they got from the multi-level company. If the company doesn’t have a training system, try to find a company that does.
Honesty is the Best Policy
The seventh factor that you require is honesty and integrity. Make sure that the parent company has an impeccable reputation in the marketplace. Remember it has to be a company that you can be proud of. You should never have to make excuses for the company you’re working for.
Product Should be Consumable
Products should be consumable, leading to reorders and repeat business. You should try to sell a product that people use up on a regular basis, so that if they’re happy with it, they’ll continue to reorder and reorder and reorder. And once you get a customer, sometimes you can have a customer for years.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do to put these ideas into action:
First, look for a product that you really like, use and enjoy yourself personally. You can only sell something to someone else if your heart is in it. And if your heart is in it you will enjoy using the product yourself.
Second, look for a product that has something new or special that makes it different and better than any other similar product in the market today. The number one reason that any product fails is because it is not superior to and different from the competition.
Customers for Life
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Tags: Financial Success
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