Archive for the ‘Brian’s Words of Wisdom’ Category
Brian's Words of Wisdom | September 27th, 2007 | No Comments »
This is a wonderful world that we live in!
This is a wonderful world that we live in! With more than one billion people living on less than one dollar per day, and problems of incredible magnitude affecting billions more all over the world, we here in America are preoccupied with whether or not OJ Simpson legally or illegally entered a hotel room in Las Vegas to get back some of his twenty year old sports memorabilia.
Meanwhile, the newspapers are preoccupied with the sub-prime mortgage problems and predicting a potential US economic meltdown. What they don’t tell you is that there are approximately fifteen trillion dollars worth of mortgages outstanding in the US today. Of this amount, a maximum of one trillion can be categorized as sub-prime, or loaned to people who do not have sufficient credit to carry their increased mortgage payments.
Of the one trillion dollars in sub-prime mortgage debt, perhaps 10% of that, or one hundred billion dollars is in default or at risk of going into default. But these houses do not disappear and lose 100% of their value. They are merely revalued downward by the marketplace, resold for a lesser amount than before, and reoccupied by new homeowners.
Bottom line? The very best calculations suggest that there may be losses of as much as thirty-six billion dollars before the sub-prime problems are ironed out and the real estate market reestablishes itself on a straight and level keel. This is a large amount of money, but compared to the thirteen trillion dollar ($13,000,000,000,000) economy, it is an amount that primarily large banks and investors, nationally and internationally, can and will absorb. Life will go on. Don’t get excited.
The situation in Iraq appears to be improving. Regardless of your opinion of the war, it must be prosecuted intelligently and brought to a proper end. The primary reasons for going into Iraq were the threats of weapons of mass destruction, to which all the major intelligence agencies in the world (US, Canada, British, German, French, Russian and Chinese) agreed existed. We are facing an enemy, “Islamo fascist extremism” that believes that all that do not bow down to Allah should be immediately murdered, including men, woman and children, even if they are Muslims but do not except a particular and extreme interpretation of the Koran.
It is hard to deal diplomatically or intelligently with people, like those who flew into the twin trade towers in New York, who believe that mass murder is a legitimate way of expressing their hatred for all who disagree with their way of believing and their way of life.
If we were to pull out of Iraq abruptly, the first thing that would happen would be a blood bath on a scale unimaginable since the Second World War. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people would be murdered by one faction or another, and the US would be held responsible.
In addition, if the US were to pull out of Iraq precipitously, it would confirm what Osama Bin Ladin has been saying, that the US is a “paper tiger” and lacks the character or guts for a sustained fight. This would encourage and embolden Muslim extremists from all over the world to commit even more mass murder.
Freedom loving peoples, who inherently dislike war of any kind, would eventually have to respond to defend themselves. The consequences of such a belated response, in the face of an enemy that wants to annihilate us, could be more severe than anyone today imagines.
The most important thing is to stay calm. Read the news with an open mind. Refuse to allow the extremist fringes in American politics to sway your thinking. Above all, think long term.
The true mark of intelligence is your ability to think into the future and to accurately calculate what might happen then, based on what you do today. This ability to play down the chessboard of life is the hallmark of true wisdom.
I’ll talk to you again soon.
Best regards,
Brian
Posted in Brian's Words of Wisdom | No Comments »
Brian's Words of Wisdom | September 13th, 2007 | No Comments »
There is no evidence whatsoever, anywhere, in any scientific study, that carbon dioxide emissions are harmful to the globe, or to any living creature.
During this summer, I have done a good deal of reading on the subject of “climate change” and “global warming.” Since these subjects are extremely controversial today, I wanted to fully understand the truth about the subjects. What I have found is very different from what you read in the popular press.
When I was in Phoenix in July, the temperature reached 115 degrees in the daytime. There was then a story in the paper saying that “This is the hottest that it has been in Phoenix since 1990.”
The often-repeated fallacy that 2007 has been the hottest summer since 1998, which was the hottest summer on record, has been disproved by fact. The truth is that the temperature in the U.S. in 1934 was the hottest summer on record. In fact, the world has been gradually cooling since 1998, all the warnings to the contrary notwithstanding.
It turns out that the emission of carbon dioxide takes place worldwide, at all times, and less than 2% of carbon dioxide emissions are caused by “anthropogenic activity” or activities caused by human beings. The flatulence from cows, which also contains methane, emits more carbon dioxide than all the SUV’s in the world.
There is another little-known factor: There is no evidence whatsoever, anywhere, in any scientific study, that carbon dioxide emissions are harmful to the globe, or to any living creature. In fact, the opposite is true. High concentrations of carbon dioxide lead to larger, richer, fuller crops and extended growing seasons, thereby increasing food production and lowering food costs for many people in the world.
It also turns out, according to worldwide experts, that global warming seems to follow carbon dioxide increases with a lag of about four hundred years. It turns out that almost every single statement in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth are false, distorted, or misleading.
There is only one correlation between global temperatures and anything else, and that is sun spot activity. Whenever the world tilts in its orbit so that it faces the sun more directly, combined with intensified sun spot activity, the globe goes through a period of warming. The global warming enthusiasts do not want to discuss the fact that the temperature on Mars has increased at exactly the same rate as the temperature on the earth over the last few years. This is all caused by sun radiation and not by man-made activity.
It is true that the earth today is about one degree warmer on average than it was fifty years ago. It is also true that the temperature of the earth has fluctuated for several thousand years, according to ice core samples taken from the Antarctic. And by the way, the Southern Hemisphere of the earth is actually cooling, not warming. Global warming is primarily in the Northern Hemisphere because it is more oriented toward the sun at this time of increased sun spot activity.
Why is there so much controversy over global warming and the role of human activity? Simple. If you are a meteorologist or weather scientist, you can only get a job, or get government grants or research grants if you bang the drum for man made global warming. If you question man made global warming, you lose your job, your tenure and your research grants. You have to leave your field of science and find another way to feed your family.
Keep your mind open. Everything I am telling you about here has been reprinted in the newspapers many times. It is not a secret. This is the best of all times in all of human history to be alive, and it is only going to get better in the years ahead. Believe it.
Talk to you again soon,
Brian
Posted in Brian's Words of Wisdom | No Comments »
Brian's Words of Wisdom | September 6th, 2007 | 1 Comment »
The Way To Wealth
This has been a busy summer for me. I have been working non-stop on the writing of three books:
1) The Way To Wealth – Part III – Blueprints For Business Success. This book contains more than seventy blueprints and forms that an entrepreneur can use to plan and organize every part of the business, improving marketing, increasing sales, reducing costs and boosting profitability.
2) Speak To Win – This is the definitive book on how to speak fluently and effectively in every situation, especially in front of large and small audiences. It is based on my twenty-five years of speaking experience, more than five thousand times to more than five million people in forty-six countries. It will be released by Amacom in January.
3) Flight Plan – The Real Secret Of Success – This book explains the real reasons for success using the metaphor of a cross-country airplane journey requiring first of all, that you be absolutely clear about your destination. Second, that you have the courage to launch in faith toward your destination, to “take off,” without any guarantee of success. And third, that you then make continual course corrections, and persist until you succeed.
My fourth book for the summer is entitled The Miracle Of Self-Discipline – The Key To Personal Greatness. This book explains twenty-one areas of life where self-discipline brings about greater self-esteem, self-confidence, personal pride and higher achievement. It goes on to explain in detail why all successful people are extremely well disciplined in their area of success, and how you can develop self-discipline at a greater level in everything you do.
As it happens, I do not consider myself an author as much as I see myself as a speaker, trainer and consultant. Nonetheless, I continuously write four or more books each year and have now been published in thirty-six languages, in fifty-two countries. I must be doing something right.
Well, I have to get back to my keyboard. I’ve just thought of another book – for 2008.
Best regards,
Brian Tracy
Posted in Brian's Words of Wisdom | 1 Comment »
Brian's Words of Wisdom | August 30th, 2007 | No Comments »
“The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.�?
As we enter into the political “silly season” the claims and counter claims of the candidates vying for the presidency are becoming louder and more questionable with each new headline.
One of the most popular whipping boys for America, continually broadcast by the “blame America first” crowd, is that there is growing inequality in America because “The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.”
Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker has studied this claim in depth. In a recent article he demonstrates that the “inequality gap” is really a “skills gap.”
In a free society like ours, everyone earns their income by serving other people in some way. The truth is that your rewards will always be equal to the quality and quantity of services that you render to others. If you want to increase your rewards, you must increase the value of your services in some way.
In the 21st Century, knowledge and skill are the keys to your financial future. As you learn and grow on the inside, and increase your ability to render valuable services to other people, you increase the amount that you earn.
One of the most important qualities of a free market is that all exchanges are voluntary. This means that no one has to buy your product or service, or anyone else’s. If people buy something from you, it is only because they are convinced that your product or service is a better choice for them, at this time, than anything else that is available.
To close your “skills gap” with other people, you must be continually upgrading your knowledge and skill. If you are not getting better, you are getting worse. If you are not learning how to do your job better and better, you are actually falling behind.
The 80/20 rule says that the top 20% of people in our society earn 80% of the money. This means that the bottom 20% must be content to fight for the crumbs that fall off the table after the top 20% have dined.
But everyone starts off at the same starting line. No one is smarter than you and no one is better than you. The reason that some people are in the top 20% is because they have invested more time and energy learning how to do their jobs better. The reason that the majority is in the bottom 80% is because they do not invest in themselves to upgrade their skills and their ability to serve others in some way.
When I discovered the miracle of continuous learning, it changed my life forever. I had always been a reader. But when I discovered audio learning, combined with regular seminar attendance, I was never the same again.
I went from rags to riches. I went from living in a single room in a boarding house to a beautiful home on a golf course in Southern California. When I heard those wonderful words, “To earn more, you must learn more.” I knew I had discovered the key to the future. And it is your key as well.
Whenever you hear people talk about the “inequality gap,” you should know that it is pure political nonsense, and the recommendations to solve this so-called inequality gap are always to raise taxes on the most productive, and punish the most successful.
Here is a great question that I learned from Earl Nightingale many years ago, “How can I increase the value of my service to my customers today?”
Everyday, when you get up and start work, you should look around yourself and seek ways to increase the value of your services. Learn new skills, and put them into action. Look for ways to serve your boss and your customers faster, better, cheaper and easier.
Resolve today to join the top 20% of income earners, and to remain in that group for the rest of your career.
I’ll talk to you again soon.
Brian Tracy
Posted in Brian's Words of Wisdom | No Comments »
Brian's Words of Wisdom | August 3rd, 2007 | No Comments »
As adults, we keep trying to go back to those lazy days of summer.
When we were children, we looked forward to the summer because we had two full months of vacation. We played with our friends, went swimming, and hung out with no responsibilities and little to do.
As adults, we keep trying to go back to those lazy days of summer. As we approach the end of June, most people slow down and begin working at half speed. Unfortunately, they were probably working at half speed before the end of June so it is even worse for them.
This has been a busy summer for me. At the end of May, I was in the Gulf, speaking in Iran, Kuwait and Dubai. In June I was speaking in New Zealand, in Christ Church, Auckland and Wellington.
When I was not speaking overseas, I was traveling all over the United States and Canada giving talks and seminars on sales, management and personal success. At the same time, I was writing my 300-page book, “The Way to Wealth – Blueprints for Success” which contains more than eighty exercises that a business owner can use to make better business decisions, and increase sales and profitability.
In June, I wrote my new book, “Speak to Win,” which summarizes the best lessons I have learned about speaking for large and small groups in the last twenty-five years. The book will be out in January, 2008 with Amacom. It also includes powerful, practical ideas that you can use to be more influential at meetings, make better sales presentations, negotiate more effectively on your own behalf, and generally use your power of speech to get more and better results, faster and easier than you ever thought possible.
On July 31, I finished my book “Flight Plan – The Real Secret of Success.” This has the potential of being a best selling book. In twelve chapters, I explain that there are three keys to success: First, be absolutely clear about your goal or destination. Second, take the first step. Move out in faith. Be willing to face failure and temporary setbacks. But never be afraid to try in the first place.
Third, just as every airplane must make continual course corrections on the way to its destination, each person must make continual course corrections to achieve any kind of success.
The most important qualities for success, as I explain in Flight Plan, are vision, courage and persistence. When you develop these qualities to a high level, you can accomplish almost anything.
This month, I am working on my next book, “The Miracle of Self Discipline – The Key to Personal Greatness.” Each of these books has already been sold to a major publisher and will be distributed both nationwide and worldwide when they come out. The subject of self-discipline is really important to each of us. Success is tons of discipline. The more discipline and self-control you have, the more it is that you can make yourself do whatever you need to do to achieve your goals.
Persistence is self-discipline in action. The more you persist, making continual course corrections toward your goal, the greater discipline you develop, and the more successful you become. This is the real secret of success.
Brian Tracy University continues to grow in enrollments, doubling its size each month. We are developing joint ventures and strategic alliances with individuals and organizations throughout the United States, Canada and several other countries to deliver BTU courses. If you have not yet visited BrianTracyU.com to check out ouradvanced learning programs on sales, sales management, leadership and personal effectiveness, you should visit today.
One of the most important things I learned, as a young man coming up with no high school education and no money, was that, “To earn more, you must learn more.” This revelation changed my life, and it can change yours as well.
The fact is that you cannot go any further ahead in your life than you are today except by learning and practicing something new. To achieve something you’ve never achieved before, you must become someone you’ve never been before. You must learn and practice skills that you’ve never had before. And there is no other way.
We are living at the most prosperous time in all of human history. More people are making more money, in more different ways, worldwide, than has even been dreamed of in the history of man on earth. Your job is to get your fair share. “The more you learn, the more you earn.” I’ll talk to you again soon.
Best regards,
Brian Tracy
Posted in Brian's Words of Wisdom | No Comments »
Brian's Words of Wisdom | July 13th, 2007 | 1 Comment »
There has never been a better time to be alive.
Traveling in the South Atlantic.
June was a busy month for me. After 15 speaking engagements in May, several of them in the Gulf, and traveling all over the United States and Canada, June was very much the same.
After giving a full day seminar in Philadelphia, I took a taxi out to the airport to catch my plane to Birmingham via Atlanta. But there were violent storms in Atlanta and my plane had been cancelled. Fortunately, I was able to transfer onto a flight at 8:15 PM which was also delayed because of the same weather conditions.
The plane finally took off at 11:00pm [vs. the 7:15pm flight I was originally scheduled on] and arrived in Atlanta at 12:30am. Because there were no more flights, I rented a car from Hertz and drove the 2 1/2 Hours to Birmingham for my full day seminar on Wednesday. I arrived at 3:30am, slept four hours, spoke all day to a very nice group of people, and then hurried out to the airport to fly to Nashville.
The flight to Nashville was also delayed because of weather. But I finally arrived in Nashville, got a few hours sleep, spoke all day Thursday and then flew back to San Diego.
When you are younger, you can absorb a few short nights combined with long days. But when you travel and speak continuously, with a series of short nights, it catches up on you.
On June 23 [Sat], I flew to Christ Church in New Zealand to conduct a series of one-day seminars for Mike Doughty, a successful entrepreneur and seminar promoter who brings top speakers from all over the world to speak to his audiences of entrepreneurs, sales people and executives.
Because of the international dateline, when I left on Saturday, 14 hours later, I arrived on Monday, losing a full day. We conducted seminars in Christ Church, Auckland and Wellington on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
New Zealand is an interesting country in many ways. Not only is it quite beautiful, lush and green, with beautiful weather and excellent skiing on the South Island, but the people are a real pleasure as well. They are well educated, informed, warm, friendly, curious, interested and committed to success, just as we are here in the U.S.
The history of New Zealand is interesting. After World War II, it became a socialistic country. The government moved in and took over 60% of the economy. Interest rates and unemployment were extremely high. Large sectors of the population were on welfare and unemployment insurance. A major export of New Zealand, aside from sheep, was young people leaving for other countries to seek opportunities.
In 1980, the labor party came into power and made a startling concession. They realized that the economy was not working. New Zealand, which should have been a dynamic, prospering country, was a socialist, impoverished backwater in the South Atlantic.
The finance minister, Roger Douglas, set off in 1983 to travel around the world seeking a new national business model. He carefully studied the low tax, low regulation policies of Ronald Regan and Margaret Thatcher, and brought them back to New Zealand.
Over the next three years, they slashed the role of government to 30%. They cut taxes, freed up business, limited regulation and liberated the economy.
As a result, the New Zealand economy took off. Unemployment dropped and disappeared. Everybody went back to work. Investment poured in. Within another two years, New Zealand was the fastest growing industrialized country in the world, with the lowest level of corruption and the highest level of new business formation. It was a revolutionary turn-around!
Just as they called it “Reganomics” in the U.S., they called it “Rogernomics” in New Zealand. I had the great good fortune of spending three hours personally with Roger Douglas back in the 1990’s, learning about the incredible transition he had brought to his country by slashing taxes and regulation.
The lesson seems to be lost on U.S. lawmakers, especially those who control Congress and the Senate. Every industrialized country in the world today is slashing taxes, especially the taxes on businesses. The U.S. now has the highest business taxes of any country in the world. More and more U.S. companies are moving overseas to function under more favorable tax regimes.
The tax cuts of 2003 in the U.S. were directly responsible for the incredible growth of the U.S. economy since then. They had the same effects as the Regan tax cuts in 1983, which led to 17 years of growth and expansion, making the U.S. the biggest, most prosperous, most entrepreneurial and dynamic country in history.
Here is the real wrinkle. Businesses do not pay taxes. They merely collect taxes for the government and pass them on. All business taxes are ultimately paid in three ways. The company raises its prices, if it can. If it cannot, it reduces its economic activities to only its most profitable products and services. And the third way that companies pays taxes is by lowering the amount of wages and other compensation for their employees. They have no choice.
We are living today at the most prosperous time in all of human history, especially in the industrialized nations, and most importantly, in the United States. But because of the incessant negative publicity in the newspapers, radio and television, all aimed at influencing the 2008 elections, fully 60% of Americans are convinced that the U.S. is currently in a recession. It is amazing how powerful propaganda can be.
There has never been a better time to be alive. There are more opportunities and possibilities for you today than have ever existed before. And if anything, the future will be even better. It is up to you to take full advantage of all these opportunities and possibilities, and achieve your full potential, both personally and financially.
Posted in Brian's Words of Wisdom | 1 Comment »
Brian's Words of Wisdom | June 11th, 2007 | 1 Comment »
We are living in an amazing world today
We are living in an amazing world today. I have just returned from 10 days in the Gulf, speaking to more than 2,000 people in five different seminars and three different countries.
Some months ago, we received a contact from a company in Tehran. They wanted to invite me to come to Iran to meet with them and speak with their many clients. Our initial reaction was to decline the invitation because of the political situation between the United States and Iran.
However, it turned out that Americans regularly visit Iran, travel all over the country as tourists and never have any problems or difficulties. We therefore decided to go.
In my three days in Tehran, I met hundreds of people, almost all of which were warm, friendly, interested, curious and open to new information. It turns out that Iran does not recognize copyrights on books or anything else. As a result, they have published more than 20 of my books in Farsi and sold more than 3,000,000 copies, making me one of the most popular authors in the country. There is a special section of Brian Tracy books in every bookstore in Iran.
The history of Iran goes back almost 3,000 years, but really began with the rise of Cyrus the Great, who built the first empire in world history, stretching from what is today Russia and Pakistan all the way to the Mediterranean, including Egypt and Greece. He built beautiful cities and brought an enormous part of the globe under Persian influence. His empire endured for more than 300 years, until 330 BC when the Emperor Darius II was defeated by Alexander the Great at Arbela.
When I traveled in Iran many years ago, I read an excerpt that said, “And the great caravans came from East and West when Isfahan was the center of the world.” The city of Isfahan is one of the great archeological treasures. It is full of temples, mosques, and beautiful buildings that attest to the richness of the Persian culture.
My trip to Iran was completely with incident, arriving and departing smoothly and on schedule. From Tehran, I flew onto Kuwait where I spent a day and a half with my friend Khalid al-Kanzi, one of the most talented and entrepreneurial businessmen I have ever met. Khalid organizes high-level training and development programs for leaders, managers and entrepreneurs in Kuwait, as well as assisting them in setting up websites to trade internationally.
My friend Tom McCarthy, one of the top business speakers in the world, who lives only two miles from me here in Solana Beach, was also in Kuwait speaking to the same group of people for Khalid. Kuwait is a remarkable country, sitting on an ocean of oil, and having one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. It is a beautiful, modern city with new hotels and office buildings going up everything. It is easy to see why the Western world reacted so strongly and came to the defense of Kuwait when Saddam Hussein invaded in 1990.
After a productive day in Kuwait, speaking on the Military Principles of Leadership as Applied to Business, I flew onto Dubai to give a one-day seminar for DAMAC, one of the fastest growing real estate developments in the world today. Dubai is booming in every sense of the word! The government has decided to make Dubai a business and financial hub for the Gulf, and for the entire region. They have liberalized business and banking laws, and are encouraging corporations and banks to open headquarters offices in the country.
DAMAC has built, or is building, 38 high-rise condominium towers to accommodate the explosive growth of Dubai. They are expanding throughout the Gulf with projects in other countries that include the construction of entire new cities.
My friend, Anand Menon of DAMAC, who brought me into speak to 185 of their top associates, executives and sales professionals, is one of the most talented personal and business development experts I have ever met. Together with his team, he is helping to build DAMAC into a world-class development and construction giant.
Interestingly enough, there was virtually no discussion of Iraq during my visit. Everyone I spoke to is pro-Western and pro-American. They have the same desires and ambitions as anyone else. They want to be successful in business, make as much money as possible, build a happy family life and enjoy all the benefits of the modern world. In addition, most of the people I worked with are highly intelligent, well educated, knowledgeable about the world, well read and hard working. Just like you!
It took 18 hours of flying to get out to the Gulf, and another 18 hours to get back. I departed Dubai on Wednesday and flew all day long, changing planes in London, and flying onto Toronto to arrive on the afternoon of the same day. After a well-received talk to 600 top executives and financial service experts of Assante Wealth Management in Toronto, I caught the afternoon flight and arrived back in San Diego by midnight Thursday, May 31 – 12 days on the road.
Here in Solana Beach, Brian Tracy University is growing and expanding. Mr. Mehran Hamidi, an experienced Internet executive, has taken over the sales and marketing activities of the University, expanding our reach worldwide. Our primary programs on Sales and Entrepreneurship are bringing about rapid increases in income and profitability for our students. Please come to www.briantracyu.com, download a free Business and Sales Assessment for yourself or your company, and watch a complete presentation on how our programs can help you achieve all your personal and business goals, guaranteed.
Next week, I am on my way to New Zealand to speak for a week. In the meantime, I continue to wish you the best of health and prosperity.
Posted in Brian's Words of Wisdom | 1 Comment »
Brian's Words of Wisdom | June 7th, 2007 | No Comments »
Cord Cooper’s thoughts
Dear Friends,
Cord Cooper of Investor’s Business Daily wrote some nice words about my book, Crunch Point that I thought you might benefit from. Here they are:
Stand Up At Crunch Time
Whether businesses face crises or individuals suffer setbacks, everything depends on how they respond under pressure.
They can slam into overdrive – leaping obstacles – or slam into a wall, Brian Tracy says in his latest book, "Crunch Point."
If execution’s important in good times, he says, it’s more crucial when your mettle is tested.
To pull out of a rough patch:
Stay calm. "Lower your emotional flash point by asking questions, listening carefully and thinking only about possible solutions," Tracy said.
When crisis hits, staying calm produces three benefits: perspective, wisdom and the ability to focus.
Take control. Accept responsibility for dealing with the problem. "Don’t dwell on the past," Tracy said. "Focus on what can be done" now.
"People fail because they don’t think the thoughts and take the actions that will change their circumstances. People stay stuck in their failures when they blame (everyone else) for their failures. Blame immobilizes."
Pinpoint constraints. "Determine the most important goal or objective you could attain to get yourself out of this crunch, and then identify your key constraint – the limiting factor that determines the speed at which you attain that goal," Tracy said. "Focus on alleviating that single constraint."
Zero in on priorities. Focus on key result areas – the 20% of activity that’ll bring 80% of results. The critical point? Keep things simple. "In a crunch or emergency, you may find yourself overwhelmed," Tracy said. Focusing on a short list of priorities often makes the difference.
If you run a business, protect your core – your key people, customers and your unique selling proposition. "What are your most important selling avenues (and) key profit centers?" Tracy said.
Close more sales. "Practice the 100-call method," Tracy said. "Set a target to get face to face with a hundred prospective customers in the shortest period of time possible" and employ your strongest closers – salespeople who are expert at closing deals.
Tracy says he has recommended this to clients for 25 years, and it almost always has precipitated turnarounds.
Look for ways to up sell, he says, and offer incentives for slow-paying customers to become current.
Conserve your energy. If your health nose-dives, you’ll face another hurdle, Tracy notes. During a crisis, it’s critical that you eat the right foods, exercise and get plenty of rest.
Remain ethical. "You demonstrate your true character when you’re under stress, when you face setbacks (and) reversals," Tracy noted.
Rise to every challenge without compromising your integrity. "Act as if everyone is watching, because they are."
Persist. "Your decision to never give up is the ultimate guarantor of your eventual success," Tracy emphasized.
In the final analysis, there are no limits to what you can accomplish except the limits you impose on yourself.
Talk to you soon!
Crunch Point
Posted in Brian's Words of Wisdom | No Comments »
Brian's Words of Wisdom | May 14th, 2007 | No Comments »
seminars in Calgary, Alberta, Vancouver, British Columbia, Las Vegas and Sacramento.
This has been a busy week for me. I gave seminars in Calgary, Alberta, Vancouver, British Columbia, Las Vegas and Sacramento. In all, my audiences tolled more than 2,000 people, almost all of them sales professionals, sales managers, entrepreneurs and business owners.
As I travel, I am continually amazed at the high standard of living and affluence that we enjoy in North America. One of the things that frustrates me is the continual drumbeat of negativity in the press, almost purely for political reasons.
Even though we are enjoying the strongest and most powerful economic times in all of human history, with 69% home ownership, an unemployment rate of 4.4%, the highest profits for companies, large and small, and greater increases in personal wealth than have ever taken place at any time in history, the newspapers continually tell us that our economy is in trouble.
Fully 28% of Americans believe that the economy is in recession. This is so silly as to be almost unbelievable. Every year, the US creates 22 million new jobs, while shedding or downsizing 20 million jobs. This is a net increase of two million new jobs per year, more than all of Europe put together.
More than one million Americans take the plunge and start a new business each year. Money pours into the US from all over the world, as do new immigrants from 194 countries. The OECD in Paris ranks the United States as the most entrepreneurial country in the world, offering more opportunities and possibilities for the average person to start a business and become success than any other country.
One of the little secrets I learned when I was in Europe is that more than two million young entrepreneurs from France and Germany, what they called “Old Europe,” have quietly immigrated to other countries seeking opportunities, many of them to the United States.
This is the best time in all of human history to be alive. And if anything, it is only going to get better in the years ahead.
When you read negative stories about America, Americans and the state of the economy, just look around you. Fully 50% of all the wealth in America has been created in the last 25 years, and wealth creation continues all around us, every single day.
Most of the negativity you read in the newspapers is politically motivated. Fully 89% of writers for the newspapers, magazines, television and radio have put themselves on record as being opposed to the current national government, and committed to getting their party back into power. To this end, they are twisting and misshaping news and information to the point where the truth is almost unrecognizable today.
Bill Gates was once asked, “If you could ask a person standing behind a screen just one question, what one question would tell you the most about his or her possibilities for success in life?”
Bill Gate’s answer to this question was that he would ask, “What country do you live in?”
If the person behind the screen answered, “The United States,” he or she would have a better chance of success than a person living anywhere else in the world.
We should get up every morning and thank whatever God we believe in that we live in this wonderful country and have endless possibilities unfolding before us.
I’ll talk to you again soon.
Posted in Brian's Words of Wisdom | No Comments »
Brian's Words of Wisdom | May 2nd, 2007 | No Comments »
The world is changing at a rapid rate today
Traveling In Eastern Europe
The world is changing at a rapid rate today, and in no place is it changing faster than in the old communist countries of Eastern Europe.
On April 22, I flew out of Los Angeles to Munich, and then onto Bucharest in Romania. Under the communist government, Romania was a repressed state with no freedoms and the people living in terror most of the time. When the Revolution came, the Dictator and his wife were tried on television, sentenced to death, and taken out in front of the courthouse and executed by a firing squad. Everyone cheered.
The people of Romania are now busy, optimistic and building a dynamic, free market economy. I stayed at the beautiful Hilton Athenee in the heart of the old city of Bucharest and gave a seminar all day Tuesday on Professional Selling.
The seminar was put together and coordinated by three amazing businesswomen – Renata, Joanna, and Liliana. They did a wonderful job coordinating all the details and channeling 200 businesspeople into the beautiful ballroom of the hotel.
On Wednesday, April 25, I flew through Vienna to Vilnius, Lithuania. Again, the entrepreneur and promoter was a talented woman named Skirmante Laucyte who organized the entire seminar from beginning to end. We had about 200 Lithuanian businesspeople all day learning about Personal Productivity and Effectiveness.
Lithuania was also under control of the Russians from 1945 to 1989, very repressed and impoverished. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Lithuanian people demanded that the Russians depart, which they eventually did.
Skirmante was telling me that, during the Russian times, her parents kept a bundle of warm clothing next to the door so that they could grab it if they were arrested in the night and deported to Siberia. They never knew, from one day to the next, if the secret police would burst in and exile them for life. Most of the population lived in this relentless state of terror and insecurity.
On the evening of April 26, I flew to Warsaw via Copenhagen. Unfortunately, Scandinavian Air Services, for which Copenhagen is their international hub, had gone on strike the day before, shutting down hundreds of flights and filling the airports with thousands of people sleeping on the floor. Fortunately for me, I flew via Air Baltic to Copenhagen and via Polish Airways to Warsaw. I was only delayed three hours, arriving in Warsaw after midnight.
In Warsaw, as in Romania and Lithuania, the economy is booming, growing at 7% – 8% per year. There are new office buildings and hotels going up everywhere, plus restaurants, shopping centers, new cars in the streets and an optimistic, happy population bustling around.
All day Friday, April 27, we had 400 people in the Warsaw Marriott taking notes and learning about Business Leadership. In the evening, we had dinner at the home of one of our Polish partners in the Brian Tracy Academy of Success. They are translating and delivering my video-based learning programs throughout the country, and are setting up our first international branch of Brian Tracy University.
Most of Warsaw was destroyed by the German army during World War II. They have rebuilt the old town almost exactly as it looked hundreds of years ago, with old buildings and cobblestone squares. The weather was beautiful, the people were happy, and it is clear that Poland has a great economic future.
On Sunday, April 29, I rose early, met once more with my Polish partners, and then caught the flight to Frankfurt. From Frankfurt, I flew back to San Diego via Denver, departing and arriving exactly on time. Throughout my trip, there was not a single word of criticism or negativity directed at the United States. Americans are popular and well liked everywhere. Most of the businesspeople are studying English so that they can integrate themselves into the world economy. They all want to enjoy the same rights, freedoms and prosperity that we have.
This is a great world that we live in. We should count our blessings everyday.
I’ll be back to you again soon.
Posted in Brian's Words of Wisdom | No Comments »
Success Newsletter
Follow me on Twitter
Fan me on Facebook
Join my Google circle
Get my RSS
YouTube
Mobile Apps
Linked In