Living Without Limits
Posted by Brian Tracy on Oct 7, 2009
The starting point of great success and achievement has always been the same. It is for you to dream big dreams. There is nothing more important, and nothing that works faster than for you to cast off your own limitations than for you to begin dreaming and fantasizing about the wonderful things that you can become, have, and do. Read the rest of this entry »
Developing a Powerful Sales Personality
Posted by Brian Tracy on Aug 27, 2009
Look for my Free Report at the bottom of this post.
Becoming excellent in closing sales is an inside job. It begins within you. In sales, your personality is more important than your product knowledge. It is more important than your sales skills. It is more important than the product or service that you are selling. In fact, your personality determines fully 80 percent of your sales success. Read the rest of this entry »
The Butterfly Effect
Posted by Brian Tracy on Jun 4, 2009
It has been said that, “A Butterfly flapping its wings in Peru can start a change in the weather that leads to a typhoon in China.”
The application of this idea is that a casual meeting with a new acquaintance at can have major long-term effects on your sales and your life.
At every turn in the road of your life, there will be a person standing there helping you or hurting you, guiding you or blocking you, giving you good or bad direction.
Read the rest of this entry »
Planning Your Year — Part One
Posted by Brian Tracy on Jan 15, 2009
There has never been a better time in all of human history to be alive than today.
There are more opportunities for you to accomplish more things, in more different fields, engaging in more different activities, than have ever existed before.
Resolve today to make the coming year the very best year of your life. Resolve today to draw a line under your past and to focus very clearly on your future. Resolve today that you are going to set goals, make plans, take actions and achieve more in the coming year than perhaps you have ever accomplished in any one single year before.
One of the great rules for success is this: “It doesn’t matter where you’re coming from; all that really matters is where you’re going!”
No matter what you have done or accomplished in the past, “that was then and this is now.”
The very best days, weeks, months and years of your life lie ahead. The most exciting accomplishments and the greatest achievements are still to come. As Shakespeare said, “The past is merely a prelude.”
As it happens, everyone has goals. But some people seem to accomplish their goals far more systematically and with greater assurance than others. Why is this? The answer is simple. People who accomplish goals at a higher rate than the average are people who use a systematic, proven method of goal setting and goal attainment.
Attain all your goals with the Maximum Achievement Goal Planner
Perhaps the two most important qualities of success are focus and concentration. Focus means knowing exactly what it is you want and concentration means having the discipline to concentrate single-mindedly on one thing, the most important thing, until it is complete.
If you have these qualities, and both of these qualities are learned through practice, you can accomplish virtually anything. There are no limits on your future if you can focus and concentrate every hour of every single day.
The starting point of setting goals for the coming year is for you to project forward and think back. Practice what we call “Back from the Future” thinking. Project forward to the end of the next twelve months and ask yourself, “If everything happens perfectly, what will it look like?”
The one quality of men and women who become leaders in their own lives and societies, throughout all of history is the quality of vision. They have the ability to visualize. They can see the future well in advance of it becoming a reality. They can then see the steps that they will need to take to get from where they are to where they want to go.
So if your next twelve months were ideal, in every respect, what would happen or, what would have happened, at the end of that twelve month period?
You need to set goals that are multi-dimensional. You need to set goals for every part of your life so that you function like a well-oiled machine, like a balanced wheel that goes around smoothly in every respect. You need goals for your health, for your career, for your finances, for your relationships, for your personal and professional development, for your community and for your spiritual growth.
Nothing happens by accident. Everything happens for a reason. And you are the “primary creative force” in your own life. You are the reason. Things are happening in your life because you make them happen, not because you sit around and wait for them to happen.
Here is the basic seven-step model of goal setting. You can use this like breathing in and breathing out on a regular basis to accelerate your attainment of any goal you can imagine for yourself.
Step number one is for you to decide exactly what you want. This immediately moves you into a separate category of people because most people have no idea of what they really want.
Clarity is the most important single quality of goal-setting and perhaps the most important single quality of success. Decide exactly what you want in each area of your life. Instead of fuzzy goals like more money, better health and happiness, be specific about exactly how much more money you want to earn in a specific period of time and combine that with exactly what level of health and fitness you desire.
Most people are unconsciously preoccupied with the fear of failure. It is the greatest single obstacle to success in adult life. And the fear of failure can work on you unconsciously by blocking you from setting clear specific goals.
Why? Well, if you don’t set clear, specific goals, then you can’t fail to achieve them. So your subconscious mind is actually protecting you by helping you to avoid failure.
You must resist and overcome this tendency by having the courage to be bold and specific about exactly what you want.
This is step number one. Read steps two through seven next time.
Maximum Achievement Goal Planner
Get Smart!
Posted by Brian Tracy on Dec 18, 2008
Creativity is your key to the future.
All progress comes about as the result of finding better, faster, cheaper, easier or different ways to do things and this requires the continual honing of your creative thinking skills.
Your Key Job At Work
One of the key functions of the executive is problem solving, which takes up as much as 50 percent of executive time. It can be said with some confidence that your ability to deal with problems creatively and effectively is the key determinant of your success as a manager. It would be hard to imagine an effective executive who could not solve problems and make decisions with a high level of competence.
Step On Your Own Acceleration
I’ve studied and lectured on creative thinking for years and I’ve come to the conclusion that there is virtually no problem you cannot solve, no goal you cannot achieve, no obstacle you cannot overcome if you know how to apply the creative powers of your mind, like a laser beam, to cut through every difficulty in your life and your work.
Earn More, Faster
The benefits of functioning with more creativity can be enormous. Each of us wants to earn more money, be promoted faster, and enjoy greater status, prestige and recognition. In most cases however, we can only earn more by producing more or of better quality or cheaper or faster - and this requires doing things differently, using creativity.
Step On Your Own Acceleration
The good news is that creativity is a skill and a talent that can be learned and developed through practice. With this skill, you can dramatically accelerate your personal and professional growth. By sharpening your thinking skills and exercising your natural creative powers, you can multiply the value of your efforts and rapidly increase the quantity and quality of your rewards.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to be more creative.
First, see yourself as a professional problem-solver and look upon every difficulty or challenge as an opportunity to develop your creative powers.
Second, look for problems you can solve and obstacles you can overcome. The more you seek for answers and ideas, the smarter and more creative you become.
How You Can Start, Build, Manage or Turn Around Any Business Home Study Course
See Also
- Brian Tracy International
Helping you achieve your personal and business goals faster than you ever imagined!
What Are You Worth?
Posted by Brian Tracy on Sep 24, 2008
Invest in yourself to achieve the best.
In the world of work, some people earn a little and some people earn a lot. What is the difference? This question has been studied for more than 100 years, and now we know the answers.
People who earn a lot—the top 20% in any field—make a greater contribution and get better results than people who earn a little-the bottom 80%.
Your work and earning life is very much like a marathon. All the runners assemble from different places at the starting line. The gun goes off! The runners begin to run, at different speeds. Some people sprint to take the lead quickly. Others go a little slower, preferring to run steadily over the long course. Others start off slowly and fall further back in the pack throughout the race, finally coming in so far behind that almost everyone has gone home by the time they cross the finish line.
In life, we all start off at the same place. When we get out of high school or college, we have few, if any, marketable skills. We take the first job that we can get and go to work. At that point, most people settle into the hum-drum of work life, doing what they are told to do, coming in at nine and leaving at five, and going home and watching television in the evenings.
But this is not for you. The race is on! The good news is that most people do not know that they are in a race so they are easy to beat.
From the time you take your first job until the time you retire, you are the president of your own personal services corporation. You are the president of an entrepreneurial company with one employee: yourself! You have one product to sell in the competitive marketplace: your personal services.
Throughout the history of economics, there has been only one way to increase your income, and that is to "add value." Every day in every way, you must be looking for ways to add value to your work, to yourself, your employer, and your customers.
Perhaps the greatest question you can ask repeatedly is: "What can I do to increase the value of my service to my customers today?"
Successful people never rest. They read continually in their field, looking for ideas and insights that will help them to add greater value. They listen to audio programs in their cars, seeking ways to contribute more to their business and to their customers. They attend seminars, and today, they become members of iLearningGlobal and plug into the preeminent source of continuous learning in the world.
One of the most important qualities of successful people is that they are highly responsible. They do not make excuses or blame others. They do not criticize or complain. They say, "If it’s to be, it’s up to me."
But responsible for what? They are, first of all, responsible for setting goals and writing down how they will achieve them. They are responsible for working on those goals every hour of every day. But they are also responsible to themselves, to earn the very most of which they are capable throughout their working lives. In this sense, they are responsible to their spouses and children, who depend upon them to earn a good living and to provide a good life.
Don’t Waste Your Potential
Perhaps the greatest tragedy in our society is that of "wasted potential." Many people have the ability to earn two or three times the amount of income they are presently enjoying by simply adding one or two new skills to their skill set.
Over the years, I have trained more than 5 million people in 47 countries. Many thousands of those people have told me and written to me giving examples of how one new skill enabled them to increase their income by 500% and even 1,000%. Many people go from rags to riches with one additional skill. Many people go from living in rented accommodation, worrying about money, to living in big houses on the hill, driving new cars and putting their children in private schools with one additional skill.
The terrible tragedy would be for you to go through your life with the ability to earn three times, four times, five times what you are earning today by simply dedicating yourself to continuous learning, and upgrading your skill set on a regular basis.
The greatest miracle of success is continuous learning, continuous personal and professional development. And just like physical fitness, you have to work at mental fitness every day. "If you don’t use it, you lose it."
The wonderful thing is that all the answers have been found. Every skill that you need to learn to increase your income radically and permanently has already been discovered and is already being taught somewhere, probably on iLearningGlobal.
Perhaps the best investment you could ever make is to buy stock in yourself. Realize that you are your most valuable asset. Your ability to earn money is the most precious thing you have. Everything that you do to increase your ability to add value and to serve other people increases the amount of money you earn and the quality of life you enjoy.
Go for it!
See Also
- Brian Tracy International
Helping you achieve your personal and business goals faster than you ever imagined!
Europe in September
Posted by Brian Tracy on Sep 17, 2008
This has been a great week!
During the last week of August, I was flying, traveling and speaking all over the country, starting in Seattle for 16,000 people, moving on to speak for Precor for the entire day, and then on to Houston to speak for Guardian Home Care.
From Houston/Galveston, I flew to Chicago and recorded a new program, “The New Psychology of Achievement” before flying on to Grand Rapids to do a seminar for 1,000 Sales Professionals to introduce the “Sales Master Academy”.
When you enroll for the Sales Mastery Academy, you receive a $295.00 gift, a 16-CD Program on personal and professional success, plus unlimited access to more than 100 high powered selling programs, delivered online to your website, anytime, anywhere. Thousands of Sales Professionals all over the English speaking world are lining up and signing up for these programs in Sales Excellence. Upon completion, each person receives a “Certified Sales Professional” certificate for framing.
On Saturday morning, I flew via Washington/Dulles to Frankfurt and onto Moscow to speak for 2,200 highly motivated dealers, distributors and representatives of the Kirby Company, easily the best vacuum cleaner in the world.
Moscow is amazing! More than 400 billion dollars has flowed into the Russian economy as the result of high oil prices, and most of this money has gone to Moscow and St. Petersburg. The streets are full of Mercedes- Benzs and BMWs. The restaurants are jammed. The prices are now the highest in the world. For example, a typical hotel room downtown costs $1,000 per night, or more. A cup of coffee is $10.00 and a glass of wine is $25.00.
The city of Moscow is quite beautiful. They have built brand new roads and highways, new apartment buildings and hotels, and everything is clean and modern. The city itself is bustling, with individual and economic activity everywhere. Although there is a lot of crime and corruption, as a traveler or tourist you don’t experience it very much. Fortunately, my clients picked me up at the airport in a private car and dropped me off at the airport later in the same vehicle. It was all very smooth.
The city of St. Petersburg is one of the most beautiful in the world. It was designed and built to compare with the finest cities in Europe, starting with Peter the Great and then later, Catherine the Great. The magnificent palaces built along the canals and rivers once housed the crowned princes and princesses, as well as the czars. Today they are museums, like the Hermitage, one of the great art museums of the world, and the Ministries of Government. Again, Russia has changed dramatically since the fall of the Soviet Union and is now clean, modern and busy.
My seminar participants, 2,200 in Moscow and 800 in St. Petersburg, were positive, enthusiastic, and eager to learn new ideas they could use to be successful in the fast growing economy.
After three days in Russia, I caught a 6:30 am flight from St. Petersburg via Vienna to Belgrade, Serbia. It is hard to believe that we were bombing these people back in the Clinton years. Today, the city is rapidly merging with the European Union, and construction is taking place everywhere. New hotels, office buildings, apartment buildings and homes are rising in every direction.
We had 600 people at the Conference Center in downtown Belgrade for the entire day. As in Russia, everyone is eager to learn and apply new ideas. I shared with them some of my best methods and strategies on Personal Planning, Goal Setting, Time Management and Sales Success.
My host Matt Marinsek is the Regional Vice President for Kirby in the Eastern Block.
His story is fascinating. He grew up in Communist Slovenia and began earning his living by selling novels door to door. His average sale was one in nine doors that he knocked on. Over the course of five years, he knocked on more than 100,000 doors in order to make a good living.
When he was 22, he set out and crossed the Sahara Desert into Niger Dahoney, now Benin.
He took a trip to the United States and met a Kirby Sales manager in a bar in Miami. Since his English was already quite good, he began selling Kirby Vacuums door to door in Southern Florida. Within a year, he was the number one salesman in his region.
The Kirby Company gave him the rights to distribute Kirby vacuum cleaners in Eastern Europe, where they currently had no market. Since then, Matt has built an organization of ten thousand people selling 60 million dollars worth of Kirby vacuum cleaners each month! It is an amazing accomplishment.
From Belgrade, I caught an early morning flight on Friday and flew all day, gaining nine hours in flight and arrived back in San Diego by 3:00 on Friday afternoon, completely exhausted.
In October, I will be returning to Russia and the Ukraine, and in November, I will be speaking in China and Malaysia. What never ceases to amaze me is that you can get onto an airplane in virtually any city, and travel to almost anywhere in the world almost as easily as driving to work. It just takes longer.
Health wise, I have dropped 17 pounds this year and kept it off, after having set it as a goal over and over again. The key to weight loss is to change your lifestyle. Make a decision today to dramatically cut back on all the foods that cause you to gain weight, eat more salads, exercise more regularly and in effect, “get serious” about health and fitness. There is no other way.
In my next blog, I will talk about the presidential campaign and the economy.
See you then!
Brian
The Law of Capital
Posted by Brian Tracy on Aug 22, 2008
The Law of Capital - your most valuable asset, in terms of cash flow, is your physical and mental capital, your earning ability.
Your Earning Ability
You may not even be aware that, unless you are wealthy already, your ability to work is the most valuable asset that you have. By utilizing your earning ability to its fullest, you can bring thousands of dollars each year into your life. By applying your earning ability to the production of valuable goods and services, you can generate sufficient money to pay for all the things that you want in life. The amount of money that you are paid today is a direct measure of the extent to which you have developed your earning ability so far.
Use Your Time Well
The first corollary of the Law of Capital says: “Your most precious resource is your time.” Your time is really all you have to sell. How much time you put in and how much of yourself you put into that time, largely determines your earning ability. Poor time management is one of the major reasons for poor productivity and underachievement in every industry in America. It is the number one problem for both managers and salespeople in every field.Â
Invest Yourself Carefully
The second corollary of the Law of Capital says: “Time and money can be either spent or invested.” One of the smartest things that you can do is to invest three percent of your earnings every month back into yourself on personal and professional development, on becoming better at the most important things you do. In fact, if you just invested as much in your mind each year as you do in your car, that alone could make you wealthy.
Invest one hour of your time reading in your field every day. Listen to audio programs in your car. Attend every course that can advance you in your career. Get personal and professional coaching to help you to get the very best out of yourself.
Get Better At the Things You Do
There is nothing that will give you a bigger and better “bang” for your buck than reinvesting a part of your time and money back into your capability to earn even more. All wealthy and successful Americans have learned this sooner or later, and all poor and unhappy Americans are still trying to figure it out.
Watch this video on the story of The Universal Laws of Success and Achievment.
Increase Your Return on Life
The third corollary of the Law of Capital says: “One of the best investments of your time and money is to increase your earning ability.”
The purpose of corporate strategic planning is to increase “return on equity” or ROE. This requires organizing and reorganizing corporate activities so that the company is earning a higher return on the capital invested in the organization. In your work life, your personal equity is your mental and emotional capital. Your job then is to earn the highest possible return on your human capital, to increase your “return on energy.” This way of viewing yourself must become a key part of your attitude throughout your work life.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do to apply this law immediately:
First, take a list of your output responsibilities, the things you do that represent accomplishments, not activities. Examine the list and rank the tasks by priority, on the basis of the value of the work to your company.
Second, take a list of all the things you do, day in and day out. Take this list to your boss and ask him or her to rank your tasks in terms of how valuable he or she considers them to be. Then resolve to work on your most valuable tasks every minute of every day.
This is only 1 of 149 Universal Laws of Success and Achievement
Universal Laws are at work whether you know about them or not. These laws explain why some people are more successful than others. By knowing them, you can explain and predict the workings of the world - and allow them to work in your favor.
Learn all The Universal Laws of Success and Achievement today.
*What did you learn? Please leave your comments!
Think Like a Millionaire
Posted by Brian Tracy on Aug 15, 2008
Attitude is Everything
The most important attitude for financial success is long-term thinking. Successful people think a long way into the future and they adjust their daily behaviors to assure they achieve their long-term goals. In a longitudinal study done at Harvard University in the 50s and 60s, they studied the reasons for upward socio-economic mobility. They were looking for factors that would predict whether or not an individual or family was going to move upward and be wealthier in the future than in the present.
They studied factors like education, intelligence, being born into the right family, or having the right connections. In every case, they found individuals who had been born with every blessing in life who did poorly. They also found individuals who had been born or come to this country with no advantages at all who had been extremely successful. What was the distinguishing factor?
They finally determined that there was only one key attitude that mattered. They called it "Time Perspective." Time perspective refers to the amount of time that you take into consideration when planning your day to day activities and when making important decisions in your life.
Gain time perspective with Time Power Package
Time Perspective
People with long-time perspective invariably move up economically in the course of their lifetimes. When you spend weeks, months and years developing your skills and ability and expanding your experience in order to be successful, you have long-time perspective. The average professional person has a time perspective of 10, 15 and 20 years.
Begin to see that everything that you are doing today is part of a long-time continuum, at the end of which you are going to be financially independent or financially unfortunate. People with short-time perspective think only about fun and pleasure in the short term. They have what economists call "The inability to delay gratification." They have an irresistible tendency to spend every single penny they earn and everything that they can borrow.
When you develop long-time perspective, you develop the discipline to delay gratification and to save your money rather than spending it. The combination of long-time perspective and delayed gratification puts you onto the high road to financial independence.
Action Exercises
Now, here are two things you can do to develop the attitudes of financially successful people:
First, think long-term about your financial life. Decide exactly how much you want to be worth five years, ten years and twenty years from today. Write it down. Make a plan. Take action on your plan every single day.
Second, develop the ability to delay gratification. Instead of buying something on impulse, put off buying decisions for a day, a week or even a month. Decide in advance to "think it over" before you buy anything. This can change the way you spend money almost immediately.
See Also
- Brian Tracy International
Helping you achieve your personal and business goals faster than you ever imagined
One Hour Makes All the Difference
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
See Also
- Brian Tracy International
One Hour Makes All the Difference
