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 »
Brutal Business Questions You Should Be Asking Yourself—But Are You?
Posted by Brian Tracy on Oct 1, 2009
The starting point of strategic planning is for you to develop absolute clarity about your current situation. Look at your overall business and ask, “What’s working?” and “What’s not working?” in every area.
What is your current level of sales? Break them down by product, product line, service, market, and distribution channel. What exactly are you selling, to which customers, at what prices, and with what level of profitability? Read the rest of this entry »
Three Characteristics of a Genius—Do you possess them?
Posted by Brian Tracy on Jul 17, 2009
Geniuses throughout the ages have been found to possess three special characteristics.
Characteristic #1:
First, all geniuses seem to have developed the ability to concentrate single mindedly on one question, problem or goal at a time, and to exclude all other diversions or distractions. The more intensely you concentrate your thoughts and attention, and the more intensely you are emotionally involved with a problem or goal, the more likely it is that your mind will respond with the kind of creative ideas that you need. And the good news is that concentration comes from practicing the process of concentrating whenever you have something you want to accomplish. Read the rest of this entry »
How to Trigger Great Ideas
Posted by Brian Tracy on Nov 26, 2008
A major stimulant to creative thinking is focused questions.
There is something about a well-worded question that often penetrates to the heart of the matter and triggers new ideas and insights.
Questions Stimulate Creative Thinking
Some of the best questions I’ve found for business problem solving are the following:
Clarify Your Desired Result
Question #1 "What are we trying to do?" Whenever you become frustrated with slow progress for any reason, step back and ask this again and again, "What are we trying to do?"
Analyze Your Current Methods
Question #2 "How are we trying to do it?" If you are experiencing resistance, perhaps your method is wrong. Be willing to objectively analyze your approach by asking, "How are we trying to do it?" Is this the right way? Could there be a better way? What if our method was completely wrong? How else could we approach it?
Could You Be Wrong?
It requires courage to face the possibility that you may be wrong but it also leads to your seeing new possibilities. The rule is: Always decide what’s right before worrying about who’s right.
Question Your Assumptions
Another good question is, "What are our assumptions?" About the person, the product, the market, the business? What are our assumptions? Could we be assuming something that is incorrect? Someone once said that "Errant assumptions lie at the root of every failure".
What if your unspoken or implied assumptions were wrong? What would you have to do differently?
Put Past Decisions on Trial
Another form of focused questioning is what I call "Zero based thinking." This method requires that you put every past decision on trial for its life regularly by asking, "If I had not made this decision, knowing what I now know, would I make it?" If I had not hired this person or gotten involved in this project, knowing what I now know, would I do it over again?
If the answer is "NO" to one of these questions, then your aim should be to get out of the decision as fast as possible. Be willing to "cut your losses," and try something else.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do to trigger more and better ideas.
First, be very clear about exactly what it is that you are trying to do. Write it down and describe it as if it were already achieved.
Second, question your assumptions continually. What if there were a better way? Be willing to try something completely different.
See Also
- Brian Tracy International
Helping you achieve your personal and business goals faster than you ever imagined!
The Principle of the Objective
Posted by Brian Tracy on Jun 16, 2008
Learn from the Lessons of History
The concepts of military strategy have been studied and written about for more than 4,000 years, going back to the early works of General Sun-Tzu in China more than 2,000 years BC. These principles of strategy that have been developed and perfected over the centuries have direct applications and implications for strategic thinking, both personally and corporately.
Decide In Advance What You Want
The most important military principle is the Principle of the Objective. This principle requires that you decide in advance exactly what it is that you are trying to accomplish. What exactly is your objective? In my experience, fully 80% of all problems in personal and corporate life come from a lack of clarity with regard to objectives and goals.
Clarity Is Critical
Clarity of objective precedes all other elements in strategic thinking. Here are some questions that you can use over and over again to focus and clarify your objectives. The first question is, "What am I trying to do?" The second question is, "How am I trying to do it?" The third question is, "What are my assumptions?" And the fourth question is, "What if my assumptions were wrong?"
Question Your Assumptions
Having the courage to ask these questions, and to question your assumptions, both spoken and unspoken, is a key mark of the superior person. Sometimes individuals avoid questioning their assumptions for fear that they will have to change their minds or do something other than what they started out to do. However, false assumptions lie at the root of almost every failure. The only way that you can root out these wrong assumptions is by carefully analyzing them and discussing them, and then by demanding proof or evidence that these assumptions are still valid.
Project Forward In Your Mind
Another method for clarifying your objectives is for you to project forward and look backward. In other words, imagine that you have already achieved the objective that you are working toward. Project yourself forward in your mind and then look back to the present day, to the present moment. What do you see? What changes could you make looking back from this imaginary perspective of hindsight? This is a key peak performance thinking technique.
Think clearly with The Power of Clarity
Determine Why You Want It
The final part of clarifying your objectives revolves around your identifying the reasons why you want to achieve this objective in the first place. Why is it important? Is it still as important as when you started off? Is this objective more important than any other objective that you could be working on? It is essential that you be clear about the answers to these questions.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to apply the principle of the objective to your personal and business life:
First, take out a piece of paper and answer the question: "What am I trying to do?" What are your goals? What are your objectives? Why are you doing what you are doing in the first place? Is this the very best use of your time and energy?
Second, question your assumptions. What things are you assuming are true about yourself, the people around you and the situation? What if one of these assumptions turned out to be false? What changes would you have to make if you found that your most cherished assumptions were not based on reality, or were contradicted by facts?
See Also
- Brian Tracy International
Helping you achieve your personal and business goals faster than you ever imagined
Who Are You?
Posted by Brian Tracy on Feb 20, 2008
You have extraodinary potential
You have extraordinary potential. You could not use all of your talents and abilities if you had 100 lifetimes. Whatever you have accomplished in your life so far is only a shadow of what is truly possible for you in the months and years ahead.
One of the indispensible requirements for great success is for you to “know who you are.” On a regular basis, you must sit down and think about yourself and the qualities, characteristics, abilities and experiences that have brought you to where you are today. It is only in this way that you can move ahead with greater confidence and clarity.
Here are 10 questions that you can ask yourself on a regular basis to keep yourself on track:
1. What are your three most important values in life right now?
2. What are the three things in life that are most important to you?
3. What are your three best qualities as a person?
4. What three personal accomplishments are you the most proud of?
5. What three skills or abilities are you the best at?
6. What have been your three biggest successes in your career so far?
7. What are the three best jobs you have ever had?
8. What three activities give you the greatest joy, peace and satisfaction?
9. What are the three most important lessons that you have learned in life so far?
10. Who are the three (or more) people you care about the most?
Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living?”
There is no one in the world that has the special combination of knowledge, education, experiences, insights, wisdom, goals, desires, and aspirations that you have. In the poem Ulysses, he says, “I am a part of all that I have met.”
You are an amazingly complex individual. You have within you, right now, the ability to accomplish more than you ever dreamed possible. But all this experience and wisdom is of no value to you if you do not sit down and think about what you have learned, and how you can apply it to your future.
In a multi-year study of successful people, the researchers found that there was one characteristic that enabled certain people to rise far higher than their peers in almost any field. This was the quality of “thoughtfulness.”
Top people take the time to sit quietly by themselves and think about who they are, what they want, and what they are currently doing.
Peter Drucker suggests that you ask the following questions regularly: 1) What am I trying to do? 2) How am I trying to do it? 3) What are my assumptions? 4) If my assumptions were wrong, what effect would that have on my decision making? 5) Could there be a better way?
In asking and answering these questions on a regular basis, especially when you are experiencing road blocks, obstacles or frustration in your current activities, you calm you mind, clarify your thinking and enable yourself to make better decisions for the future.
It is said that the average person uses only 10% of their potential. The actual number is closer to 2%. This is because people get into comfort zones, automatic routines which they repeat day after day, seldom challenging their own thinking or behaviors.
But this is not for you. Your goal is to “Be all you can be.” Your goal is to use more and more of your potential moving forward. They way you do this is by asking yourself focused questions that help you to develop absolute clarity about who you are and where you are going.
Good luck!
Brian Tracy
