Releasing Your Brakes
Posted by Brian Tracy on Oct 29, 2009
How to unlock your subconscious brakes and move ahead
rapidly in your life
Do you have any ideas or attitudes about yourself and your abilities that may be holding you back from great success and happiness? As it happens, everyone does. Read the rest of this entry »
Brian Tracy 30-Day Testimonial Contest–Enter Now!
Posted by Brian Tracy on Sep 1, 2009
Would you like to win a personal phone call from me, a $500 Gift Certificate to BrianTracy.com, an iPod pre-loaded with 20 of my 1-hour MP3’s of your choice, AND a FLIP Video Camera?!
Well, starting today, we are launching an exciting new 30-day Testimonial Contest! Read the rest of this entry »
Take Time Out for Mental Digestion
Posted by Brian Tracy on Nov 24, 2008
How to get support for your ideas more easily than ever before.
Many years ago a retiring executive gave me an old pamphlet he had carried throughout his career. It was entitled, "Take Time Out for Mental Digestion."
He told me that this little pamphlet had been one of the most helpful things he had ever read in his business life. At the time I spoke to him he was the president of a corporation with more than 10,000 employees.
The message of this pamphlet was simple. It said that people always resist new ideas and new courses of action, even if the ideas are good for them. However, if they have an opportunity to think about them for a few days, very often they will come around to the new way of thinking with both agreement and enthusiasm.
The pamphlet said that an individual needs about 72 hours to absorb a new idea. Effective executives are those who present their ideas in very casual way, rather than as a decision or a fact engraved in stone. They present their thoughts as ideas for consideration. Effective executives encourage the other person to take the new idea or new way of doing things and think about it for a few days. They say that "we can discuss this later" and they just leave the idea with the other person.
Over the years, I have found this to be a remarkable piece of advice and a very important insight to communicating effectively with others.
People Will Resist Change
It is normal and natural for people to resist change of any kind, even and including a change that they will benefit from. So, allow them to take time out for mental digestion. Present your new idea in a low keyed, non-threatening way and just encourage the individual to think about it for a while and then discuss it later.
Present Ideas As Possibilities
In my early executive career, I was continually frustrated by trying to get my ideas, which I had thought through and which I, of course, thought were wonderful, accepted by my seniors and my co-workers.
When I started taking time out for mental digestion and just presented my ideas as possibilities, I was astonished at how much more readily people turned around and came to see the validity of the ideas. I also found that, if you present an idea with too much enthusiasm, you trigger natural resistance which soon becomes ego-based, irrespective of the validity of the ideas.
Present Ideas in a Low-Keyed Manner
On the other hand, if you present your ideas in a low-keyed manner and just leave them for consideration, people can come around to accepting them in their own time and embracing your new ideas without any loss of face or without any ego problems.
The next time you have a great idea, mention it casually and ask other people what they think about it. Give people time to digest the idea, even if they are totally opposed to it at the beginning.
Action Exercises
Now, here are two things you can do to use this principle in practice.
First, think your ideas through on paper before you present them to others. Expect natural resistance. When you do present your ideas, do it in a low keyed, almost indifferent manner so that it stirs up no resistance.
Second, expect your ideas to be rejected initially. When this happens, simply ask open ended questions to get feedback and then present your ideas again at a later time in a different form. It is amazing how effective this strategy will be.
See Also
- Brian Tracy International
Helping you achieve your personal and business goals faster than you ever imagined!
Using Your Inner Guidance System
Posted by Brian Tracy on Oct 27, 2008
You have incredible powers of mind and emotions that give you timely and accurate feedback in every area of your life.
In this newsletter, you learn how to "tune in" to yourself so you can make the right decision in every situation.
Using Your Inner Guidance System
We know that the body has a natural bias toward health and energy. It’s designed to last for 100 years with proper care and maintenance. When something goes wrong with any part of our body, we experience it in the form of pain or discomfort of some kind.
We know that when our body is not functioning smoothly and painlessly, something is wrong, and we take action to correct it. We go to a doctor; we take pills; we undergo physical therapy, massage or chiropractic. We know that if we ignore pain or discomfort for any period of time, it could lead to something more serious.
How to Tell Right From Wrong
In the same sense, nature also gives us a way to tell emotionally what’s right for us and what’s wrong for us in life. Just as nature gives us physical pain to guide us to doing or not doing things in the physical realm, nature gives us emotional pain to guide us toward doing or not doing things in the emotional or mental realm. The wonderful thing is that you’re constructed so that if you simply listen carefully to yourself-to your mind, your body and your emotions-and follow the guidance you’re given, you can dramatically enhance the quality of your life.
Just as the natural physical state of your body is health and vitality, your natural emotional state is peace and happiness. Whenever you experience a deviation from peace and happiness, it’s an indication that something is amiss. Something is wrong with what you’re thinking, doing or saying. Your feeling of inner happiness is the best indicator you could ever have to tell you what you should be doing more of and what you should be doing less of.
Improve positive thoughts with The Science of Self-Confidence Training Kit.
The Messenger
Unhappiness is to your life as pain is to your body. It is sent as a messenger to tell you that what you’re doing is wrong for you.
Very often, you’ll suffer from what has been called "divine discontent." You’ll feel fidgety and uneasy for a reason or reasons that are unclear to you. You’ll be dissatisfied with the status quo. Sometimes, you’ll be unable to sleep. Sometimes, you’ll be angry or irritable. Very often, you’ll get upset with things that have nothing to do with the real issue. You’ll have a deep inner sense that something isn’t as it should be, and you’ll often feel like a fish on a hook, wriggling and squirming emotionally to get free.
Divine Discontent
And that is a good thing. Divine discontent always comes before a positive life change. If you were perfectly satisfied, you would never take any action to improve or change your circumstances. Only when you’re dissatisfied for some reason do you have the inner motivation to engage in the outer behaviors that lead you onward and upward.
Listen to yourself. Trust your inner voice. Go with the flow of your own personality. Do the things that make you feel happy inside and you’ll probably never make another mistake.
Action Exercises
Here are three steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, listen to yourself and trust your own feelings. If there is a part of your life that causes you stress and unhappiness, resolve to deal with it.
Second, identify those areas of your life where you are dissatisfied or frustrated for any reason. What changes should you, could you make?
Third, remember that nature wants you to be happy, healthy, popular and prosperous. Any deviation from those conditions is a signal to you that action is necessary.
The Science of Self-Confidence Training Kit
See Also
- Brian Tracy International
Helping you achieve your personal and business goals faster than you ever imagined!
Test Marketing Your Product or Service
Posted by Brian Tracy on Sep 25, 2008
Six Ways To Get Fast Feedback
How do you test market a product or service? How do you find out if people are actually going to buy it? First, make or get a prototype. Create or get a sample. If it’s being manu factured somewhere else, get a sample of it. If you’re going to manufacture it your self, create a prototype so that you can show it, demonstrate it, photograph it. So that you can let people see it, touch it, feel it, and get an opinion from it.
Show It To Potential Buyers
When we brought the Suzuki 4-wheel drive vehicles into North America, we bought three of them. We brought them in and drove them around to about 20 or 30 dealerships and let people look at them, test drive them, see them, touch them, smell them, feel them. And went on to sell tho usands and tho usands of vehicles. So get a prototype or a sample. That’s the starting point.
Determine the Correct Prices
Second is get accurate pr ices and delivery dates from your suppliers. If you’re going to show the prototype or sample, if a person says how much is it, or how long will it take to get it, be sure that you have the answers.
Outselling Your Competition is easy with the proper tools and techniques!
Ask A Buyer
Number three is get a buyer’s personal opinion. In other words, go to somebody who you will want to buy the product or service and get their personal opinion. Say, would you buy this? And at what price could you sell it? And always call on the individual who makes the buying decisions. Always call on the person who can sign the check.
Compare Your Product With Others
Number four, compare your product or service with other products on the market. And be sure to ask this question, "Why would someone buy from you instead of from someone else?" Number five, if it’s a ret ail product, try a 1-store test. Go and see if you can’t find a store who will carry the product on a limited basis and see how customers respond to it. Try a 1-customer test. If it’s a product or service, try to find one customer who will use the product or service.
Start With A Great Idea
Now Ross Perot, when he started EDP Industries, only had a thousand dollars. He had a great idea that would cost an enormous amount of mo ney to implement, and he was able to sell his first customer on paying him in advance for the services that he was going to sell them. With the mo ney that he got in advance, he was able to deliver the services, to prove that they worked and that they were cost effective. And the rest is history. Ross Perot went on to build one of the most successful businesses in America.
Take It To A Trade Show
A sixth way to test market a product or service is take it to a trade show. There are 15,000 trade shows per annum all over the country. Sophisticated buyers go to trade shows and they will tell you rapidly whether or not you have a winner.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into practice.
First, get a sample or prototype of your product or service and show it to as many people as possible, especially to potential buyers. This will give you fast feedback that can be very helpful to you.
Second, look at all of the other competing products or services on the market and be very clear why someone would buy from you rather than continuing to buy from someone else. This can be the most important question you ask and answer.
Outselling Your Competition *** Plus Bonus CDs
See Also
- Brian Tracy International
Helping you achieve your personal and business goals faster than you ever imagined!
Three Powerful Principles for Success
Posted by Brian Tracy on Sep 11, 2008
Be Clear About Your Goals
There are many similarities between business and war. In both cases, the victor is the one who uses superior strategy against his or her competition. There are three principles of military strategy you can apply to your work every single day. The first idea from the military is called the Principle of Man euver. The principle of man euver says that you should be clear about the goal, but be flexible about the process of ach ieving it. According to the Menninger Institute, this quality of flexibility is the most important single quality that you will require for success in times of rapid change. Be Open to Continuous Feedback Learn What You Need to Know
Make Better Decisions Invest Your Resources Wisely Action Exercises First, remain flexible when you are working towards your goal. In times of rap id change, all of your best ideas can be contradicted by new information. Be willing to try different things. Be open to new inputs and ideas. Second, get the facts! The more and better information you can acquire before you make a decision, the better your decision will be. The very best managers spend a good amount of time getting the real, provable facts before they take action.
A key peak performance quality for you is to "accept feedback and self-correct." Peak performers are those who can take information from their environment and even if the information is contrary to all of their planning, they can accept the information, modify their plans, and continue moving forward. They are always open to new ideas and insights.
Rapid Learning Made Simple and easy. Retain more than you ever have before!
The second military principle you can use is the Principle of Intelligence. This principle of intelligence means simply, "get the facts!"
The most important thing in business decision making is for you to get accurate information. Facts don’t lie. It is important that you get the real facts, not the assumed facts or the apparent facts or the obvious facts, or the hoped for facts, but the real, provable facts.
Perhaps the key job of the executive is decision making. The quality of the decisions that you make will be in direct proportion to the amount of time that you take to gather timely and accurate information. The very best thing that you can do, if you have insufficient information, is to delay making a decision at all.
The third military principle applied to strategic planning is the Principle of Economy of Force. Economy of force means that you expend only the resources necessary to achieve the objective and not more. It also means that you commit sufficient resources to achieve the objective once you have decided upon it.
Since your own personal en ergy is all you really have to invest over the course of your lif etime, the military principle of economy says that you should be very selfish when deciding how you are going to use your self. Keep asking your self, "How important is this?" and more important, "How important is this to me?"
Here are two ideas that you can apply immediately to be more strategic in your work and personal life.
See Also
- Brian Tracy International
Helping you achieve your personal and business goals faster than you ever imagined!
The Key to Motivation
Posted by Brian Tracy on Aug 6, 2008
Your Real Goal
Your goal is to become a transformational leader, the kind of person that motivates and inspires people to perform at levels far beyond anything that they had previously thought possible.
Keep People In the Know
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.
Give Regular Feedback
One empowering behavior practiced by transformational leaders is regular feedback on performance and results. People need to know how they’re doing so they can improve if performance is below standards and so that they can be proud of their successes. The more feedback you give to people, the better it is, as long as the feedback is objective and not critical. My friend, Ken Blanchard, says that, “Positive feedback is the breakfast of champions.”
Learn how to motivate, inspire and uplift people to achieve your vision with Leadership:Leadership: The Critical Difference
Be Generous With Praise
Be generous with your praise and encouragement. Remember, people are the only asset that can be made to appreciate in value by giving them warmth, respect, approval and by creating a climate of positive expectations.
Create An Exciting Future
What companies and countries and institutions need today are courageous visionary leaders who are committed to creating an exciting future for themselves and others. You have within yourself the ability to evolve and grow as a leader and to make a real difference in the world around you. And the one thing you can know for sure about yourself is that, no matter what you’ve accomplished up to now, there is far more that you can do.
As you practice the behaviors of effective leaders, you will grow more and more toward the realization of your full potential. It’s completely up to you.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action in your work.
First, hold regular meetings with your staff and tell them everything that is going on. Invite their comments, questions and concerns. Make everybody feel as if he or she was an insider in the organization.
Second, continually look for opportunities to give positive feedback, praise and encouragement. People need praise and encouragement like roses need rain and sunshine. Take every opportunity to make people feel better about themselves and their work.
Leadership: The Critical Difference
See Also
- Brian Tracy International
Your Real Goal
Four Ways to Test Your Idea
Posted by Brian Tracy on Jul 10, 2008
How to be sure that you have a great business idea before you put time and money into it.
There are four great ways for you to test any product or service idea before you start a business built upon it.
The Best Source of Advice
Number one, seek out people who are already in the same business and ask their opinions of the product or service. Many people have saved themselves an enormous amount of time and money by finding that people who are already in the business wish they weren’t in the business and who wish they hadn’t invested the time or money to get in the business in the first place. So go and talk to them. Ask them what they think about the business. Ask them if they would recommend that someone else get into the business. Don’t be shy or secretive.
Ask for Feedback On Your Idea
Every so often, at seminars, I have people come up to me and ask me if I would give them some advice on their business, and I say, "Well, what is your idea?" And they won’t tell me what their idea is because they’re afraid somebody will steal their idea. The fact is that ideas are a dime a dozen. So be perfectly open. Tell people what you’re thinking of doing. And get feedback from people who are already in the business. That alone has saved me hundreds of thousands of dollars. It may even have saved my financial life on a couple of occasions.
Get your idea across with How to Talk: Secrets of the Great Communicators + Bonuses!
Ask Your Bank Manager for Advice
Number two is to ask your bank manager for his opinion or advice. A bank manager, who deals with commercial accounts, very often has a tremendously accurate sense for what kind of businesses will succeed and what kind won’t. One 5-minute interview with my bank manager a few years ago saved me $200,000 dollars in an investment. He pointed out to me the weaknesses in the particular business I was looking at getting into, and I had no answer for him. So I didn’t go into the business and the people who did lost everything that they put into it. Ask your bank manager. Your bank manager can be one of the very best sources of business advice.
Check With Family and Friends
Number three, ask your friends, ask your family, ask your acquaintances for information. Family members are very good targets for market research. Ask your family and friends if they would buy the product or service that you’re thinking of offering. How much would they pay for it? Listen to their questions. Listen to their criticisms. Listen to their concerns. Because if you can’t answer their questions and concerns in a logical and believable way, it could be that there’s something wrong with your idea.
Talk to a Potential Customer
The fourth way to do market research is to visit prospective customers for the product or service and ask if they would buy it. If you’re thinking of selling something to a company, go to the type of company that you would sell it to and ask if they would buy it if you produced it. If you’re thinking of selling something through retail, go to the retailer and ask them if they would buy it or sell it. Ask the customer. Customers are very open and very candid and sometimes they’ll give you insights that will be worth their weight in gold. If you’re going to sell through a retailer, ask the retailer if he or she could sell the product if they were carrying it. Why or why not?
Action Exercises
Now, here are two things you can do immediately to test your ideas more thoroughly before you invest in them:
First, visit people who are in the same business and ask for their opinions. Call them on the telephone. A person already doing the business is the best source of advice in that business.
Second, ask your bank manager for advice. Lay out your business plan or idea to him or her and ask for his or her candid feedback. This could save you an enormous amount of time and money.
How to Talk: Secrets of the Great Communicators + Bonuses!
See Also
- Brian Tracy International
Helping you achieve your personal and business goals faster than you ever imagined
The Way to Wealth
Posted by Brian Tracy on Jun 11, 2008
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!
See Also
- Brian Tracy International
Helping you achieve your personal and business goals faster than you ever imagined
Feedback and Discipline
Posted by Brian Tracy on Apr 7, 2008
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 emergency.
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.
Leadership for Results Package
